


The Price of Life

by sharkgriffin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Bullying, Depression, Drug Use, F/F, Homophobia, Language, Lesbian Relationship, Sexual Content, Smoking, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:17:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 64,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkgriffin/pseuds/sharkgriffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna Milton is a rich girl home from her boarding school for the Summer. Ruby Masters is one of the many homeless on the streets of Manhattan. There's one thing she can do to save her family; sell her life. When the two meet and a romance forms between them, only Anna can stop her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

 

 

 

>    **To sell your life (commonly known to the public as warping) is an accepted practice in some societies while illegal in most others. The process involves draining the life source from the subject to use for medicines and all organs to be donated scientific research or for transplants. A large sum of money will then be given to the before said subject's family. A black market for "warping" runs in most countries where it is still illegal.**
> 
> **-** Worldwide Technology Fact File, January 2137

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Anna**

*********

**  
**

 She had never seen so many homeless people in one place. As the train slid out of the tunnel at 100 miles an hour and and a wave of air brushed over her, they swarmed over the carriage, hundreds of young men and women, pushing their faces against the window and pleading for food. A young girl with brown waves of hair and a round face, clung to their window and Jo turned her face away, not wanting to feel guilty about their pain. But Anna continued to stare. The girl was so skinny and no older than 13, and Anna reached into her bag and took out a sandwich from her bag and handed it out of the window. The girl looked delighted and jumped away, out of sight down the hill. The train pulled into the station and the rest of the crowd scampered away.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Jo. "It's not a good thing to encourage them."

"But she looked so sad. Don't tell me you believe all that the media's saying about them."

"They're trained to look sad. It's just a con. And of course I don't believe what the media's saying. It's all a load of crap."

"Watch your mouth, Joanna Beth Harvelle," Anna said and the two friends both started laughing. The doors to the train opened and parents crowded in looking for their children although it was nearly impossible to tell them apart from their almost identical uniforms. A woman with reddish-brown hair in a bun, and stunningly large blue eyes, pushed too the front of that crowd and relief flashed across her face as she spotted Anna. She strode forward, quite professionally and hugged her, tightly.

"I missed you," she said. "I hope you're keeping up with your work." All emotion left her voice again. She noticed Jo. "Hello Joanna."

"Hi Mrs Milton."

"I've already told you. Call me Naomi."

"And I already told you, call me Jo."

"Naomi," a voice called, and they all spun around to see Ellen Harvelle with her loving nature filling the air.

"I haven't seen you in ages. And you, Anna. You're getting tall. You look so much like your mom now."

"Anna and Jo are  still inseparable," Anna's mom replied, finally using Jo's nickname. "She's getting very beautiful. She'll break many hearts," she said as if that was meant to be a good thing and they were all 8 years old. It was true though. Jo was incredibly pretty. She had blonde curls and large, hazel eyes, and was thin like Anna but yet looked far healthier.

" Well I have to take Jo home now. I left Ash in charge of the Roadhouse."

"Maybe we can organize them a play date soon."

_Really? A play date? She's so old fashioned._

"Well anyway, I have to go too," Naomi continued. "Zach's bringing Cas home and I wanted to prepare a special meal for them when they arrived. I'm going to make your favorite dessert, Anna; chocolate cake."

The two parents, each now with their daughters, left in different directions.

"So how are they looking after you well?" Naomi touched her daughter's shoulder.

"Yes," Anna droned.

"And everyone's being nice to you?" Anna pulled away from her grip, wanting to give the message that she wasn't a little girl anymore.

"Yes."

_It's your own fault she's treating you like this. She wants to protect you._

They shuffled along, slowly, taking twice the time they should have, until they reached the familiar, green front door of the Milton family. Naomi pressed her finger against the scanner on the front door before saying her name."Naomi Milton." The door opened and a small boy with messy hair and enormous, blue eyes, like his mother's, approached them, slowly, and put his arms around Anna's waist.

"Hey, Cas. Did you miss me?"Cas nodded, shyly.

"Are you excited? After the Summer, you're starting highschool!"

Again, Cas nodded and then ran into the living room.

"He's still not talking?" she asked hr mother when he was out of earshot.

"Barely speaks at all apart from to his friends. It's dangerous. He's 14, he should be having some fun."

"Naomi. Seems we arrived here before you." A middle aged man with graying hair, in a suit, came out of the kitchen.

"Anna, it's good to see you."

"Father," she said solemnly, and that was a summary of their relationship. He gave her a fake smile, one she saw right through, and then turned back to Naomi.

"We arrived back before you. Does the walk from the station take so long?" He still wore that haunting smile but it fooled no one.

"Yes, well the train came in late." Naomi kept a straight face but no one could mistake the fear.

"Well why don't you go and make dinner now."

_He's pushing her. You should do something._

Her two parents went to the kitchen and she rolled onto the sofa, next to Cas who was on his SNAP-PAD, using the language program his school had set him. 'Advanced in lingual skills' they called him. 'His brain works in different ways to ours.' Shouting came from the kitchen in a man's voice and then, what sounded like a slap. Nothing had changed.

_He's hurting her. Do something!_

She had to pretend she hadn't heard anything. It was the children's jobs to hide their parents worst secrets for fear. It was how, not just parents, but all adults, controlled them. She felt the pressure in her wrist as her meds were injected into her blood, the slide of the needle into a vein and closed her eyes. Just eighteen more months.

 

 

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

 This street wasn't the same anymore. In the past, no ordinary person would have thought twice about a dirty alleyway, smelling of sewage and worse, pretty much the same as it was now. But back then, to Ruby, this place had been a second home. She would hang out there all day, climbing walls, playing card games, anything she could do to pass the time. Of course, that was when Bela was here.

Meg scampered towards her, waving a sandwich in the air. Ruby stood up from where she'd been leaning against the wall and stamped out her cigarette, before glancing back at her little sister. 

"Where did you get that? Don't tell me you stole it."

"You can talk." Meg's voice and attitude were both far too grown up for a girl of 14, taking after the older girl who had often been mistaken for being an adult, despite only being 17.

"Yeah, well I've learnt my lesson now. Remember what happened last time?"

"I know and FYI, I didn't steal it."

"No one says FYI anymore. So where did you get it?"

"The train."

Ruby grabbed the collar of Meg's shirt. "Are you serious? Meg, you can't get food from the people on the train."

"It was one of those Lauren Parker girls. All I did was pull a sad face and now we have nutella thanks to that red head."

"But you don't get it. We need to people respect us but by doing that, we just make them think we're weak."

"Alastair would have agreed with me."

"Yeah, well like it or not, Alastair's gone. And I'm not going to do the same, crap job he did of looking after you and mom. You can at least share that with me."

Meg grinned and split the sandwich in half, and as they began to eat, they left, through the trashed and worn down lower level of Manhattan. People say that in the last fifty years the upper two levels have jumped forwards centuries; space exploration, robots, technology, down here, they had jumped back in time a hundred years. It was like the 19th century for the homeless.

For a while, it was just the tapping of the two sisters' worn out converses on the cracked pavement but soon they were joined with others, all heading back to the shelter with them. The sweet taste of the nutella lingered on her tongue, and she wanted to keep it like that. Nutella was a rare thing for them.

The Masters family, three children and their mother, got a tiny room to themselves in the shelter, three mattresses and two tiny tables. Everything they owned fitted in here. They couldn't afford to buy one more mattress for the family so that Meg could sleep in her own bed. They were too busy spending it on the food for the day and the washing powder. Two sisters had the job of scrounging whatever they could from the dumpsters, their mother spent the day looking for work people trusted her to do. The youngest, Tom, happily stayed behind. He was 12, not old enough to be trusted outside on his own.

"Ruby." Lilith Masters came towards them. She was a woman in her forties and still beautiful and strong despite being the only adult there to look after them. Their dad left when Alastair was 9, Ruby was 4, Meg was 1 and Tom wasn't even born yet. She barely remembered him but even a mention of him made her grimace.

"Did you get anything today?" Lilith was a good inch shorter than her but just as thin.

Ruby took a scruffy sweater from her bag. "Got it from outside the Walker house. It might fit Tom or we could sell it once it's cleaned up."

Lilith looked suspiciously at her. "Have you been smoking again?"

"Mom_"

"I'm not having you wasting your money on those disgusting things that will turn every boy and girl away from you. Like with Bela."

Ruby glared at her mother. "I'm not spending money on them. Connor gives them away for free."

"Again with that Connor. He's a bad influence on you."

"I promise I'll stop soon." She crossed her fingers behind her back.

"Well go and get ready for dinner. I managed to get enough today to afford something for each of us at least."

Obediently, Ruby flopped down onto her mattress, flattening her hair down and placing the new sweater beside it. Then, she remembered and felt among her CD's. Between the old Black Rose album and the New Generation album, a scrap of paper, an advert hidden well on the internet. Only someone with great ability could find it. An advert for warping..


	2. II

**It's Not So Illegal** **After All**

 

 

> **Yesterday, after a government meeting, the state of Kansas legalized the public named "Warping", just six months after dealing with the Swine Flu epidemic. Nine years ago, the state also legalized gay marriage which they received high praise for after what other papers deemed "a century of ignorance," but now they are in fact receiving criticism from the rest of the country. Is this just a clever ploy to upgrade their low standard health services? When asking government official Isaac Reynolds (47) he told us that Story Continued on Page 5**
> 
> **\- New York Post, March 2150**

**Anna**

 

*********

 

"It's good to hear from you, Anna. We've all been praying for you." Pastor George's voice buzzed in her ear. "How are you doing?" His voice was filled with concern.

"Um better. At least I think it's better." She stroked her silver MEDI-band.

"Good, good."

"I'll see you in church on Sunday."

"Well actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'd like to see you a little earlier. Tomorrow, I'm taking the youth group to a homeless shelter to serve food to the people there. Maybe bake some food. I know now's a rough time for you and you just got back from school but_"

"No, it's fine. I-I'll come. It sounds fun."

"Fantastic. We're meeting at 5.30 in the Youth room." He put the phone down on her. Anna smiled. Since she was just a little girl, Pastor George had looked after her along with many other girls. He'd been especially worried about her this last year. He was like a father to her.

_Better than a father._

She coughed to avoid the smirk on her face and went to the kitchen to begin making the muffins.

____________________

She met them outside the youth room at the church, just where Pastor George said they would be. Girls and boys (but mainly just girls) from around 8 to 14. If her father weren't so worried about little Cas (that's what he called it, worried), he would have been here, too. Pastor George looked strangely unfamiliar in a hoodie and jeans but yet, it suited him. He paired her up with a little 8 year old named Ben Braeden who started chatting to her immediately about rock music.

"You have a cool bracelet," he said as they set off.

"Oh, thank you." She squeezed her MEDI-band tighter and the metal deeper into her skin." As they strode through the streets of the Lower Levels of New York with her balancing her tray in one arm while Ben held the other, the area appeared to be becoming more worn down. People squatted in corners, muttering to themselves, and one clearly drunk man, grabbed the bottom of her skirt, mumbling in his own language. Pastor George pulled her, briskly away. The outside of the shelter appeared to be a brick wall with two windows, underneath a bridge. Someone had taped up posters for some bands named ROK and The Late Night People, bands that didn't appear in the world of classical music her mother dragged her into. Someone else had coated the other wall in unreadable, purple graffiti. Pastor George slowed his pace. He was obviously quite scared. And then they were in. The room was a set out of long grey tables, grey walls and just plain grey everything. So much for trying to make them feel happier. In here, there were almost as many people as she had seen at the train the day before. This was the cheapest place for them to get food that wasn't free, just 1 tag per person and she assumed they knew about the free muffins being brought. A small girl sat at one of the tables. She seemed almost familiar. Anna gasped as she realized it was the girl she gave the sandwich to. The girl had seen her too and smiled, cheekily. Next to her was an incredibly scary looking, tall girl. Her hair was blue and dyed badly, the brown was already starting to show through in the roots. Her black shirt had stitches in various places like she had had to fix it quite a few times, with a scrap of navy blue fabric under the arms. Her jeans were just as worn out. She was trying out a punk style and had several piercings in each ear as well as a nose stud. She had thick eyebrows and large lips and darkened around the eyes.

_She's pretty._

She was surprisingly pretty. A boy who could only be described as insect-like, with the most enormous hands had his skinny arms wrapped around her waist and she didn't look particularly happy about this. Apart from stick boy (the name popped into her head) everyone else edged away. She obviously scared them too. Yet there was something about her, something interesting.

 

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

_Stupid snobs. Those stupid snobby religious girls who come in here for the purpose of showing off their designer clothes and hoping this will get them a ticket to Heaven. With their stupid glittery trainers and straightened hair and those pads they carry around and their X-bands or whatever you call them and those expandable jackets._

A church group had just arrived to hand out free muffins and she scowled at each and everyone of them. It was jealousy, probably. They get their high lives on the upper levels and she got hanging out in the dirt with Connor the Creep. She was directing most of her rage at the back of a skinny, ginger girl, in a long yellow skirt and denim jacket, a weird mix. As the group continued on towards her, the girl turned around and a smile split across Meg's face like she knew her. She was pretty in a fragile way, with porcelain skin and high cheekbones, but bony thin and pale. A few of the young children with her backed away and Ruby rolled her eyes. She had that effect on people, of scaring them with her goth/punk looks and rock music. But the ginger girl just stared. Ruby wrestled Connor's hands off her waist. Connor Ashby-Grey, was his name and he had had an interest in her since he arrived here six years ago. Now he just assumed they were dating despite _all_ her protests.

"Babe, what's wrong?"

" _Don't_ call me babe," she hissed at him and pulled herself away.

"Fine.  _Ruby,_ what's wrong?"

"Stay away from me, Connor."

"Why?" He came up close and whispered in her ear.

"Because, for the thousandth time, I don't like you!" She slapped his face away and nodded to Lilith who shook her head, disapprovingly, before stepping towards the food counter as fast as possible. She took a plate from the pile and bumped straight into Sam.

"Oh s-sorry, Ruby. I-I_"

"Am I making you nervous, Winchester?"

"Oh no I_"

"You see, Sam. This was why we didn't work together."

"Scoot Masters." Sam's older brother, Dean, who was 22 and always trying to get a job as a mechanic, pushed her out of the way and held a protective hand over his little Sammy. It was clear he didn't like her at all and the feeling was mutual.

"Hey, has anyone got some air freshener? It smells like shit in here," she said looking directly at Dean."

"Go screw yourself, bitch."

"Charming."

Dean twisted his head and noticed the girl handing out muffins. "Who's the red head? She's...hot."

"She is _so_ out of your league, cherry pie."

"How would you know? You don't know her."

"Because she's younger than Sammy here and I'm ninety percent sure, she wouldn't be interested in a self-obsessed douchebag."

"I don't know, I think I'm pretty awesome."

"And proving point number two."

"Shut up." He kicked her shins and dragged Sam away, making sure to give her a threatening stare. "I'll kill you if you go anywhere near Sam," he mouthed.

_I'd like to see him try._

"Muffin?" She was so busy planning out death scenes for Dean that she didn't realize the ginger girl was standing behind her. Only a few muffins were left on her tray.

"Oh sure, thanks." She took two, one chocolate and one blueberry, hoping to save them for later. "Well this is a first."

"What is?"

"A posh girl like you not being scared of me. Of all the snobs I've met, most have never heard of a goth."

"Well I guess I'm different." She smiled to reveal two rows of perfect, white teeth. "I'm Anna."

Ruby looked up. Anna looked expectant of something. "I'm Ruby. And that creep you saw earlier is Connor. Do me a favor, if he asks for a muffin, punch him in the face."

Anna covered her mouth but not before Ruby had seen the corners turn up. She had big eyes, too. They were positioned perfectly, equal distance apart and of a pale green with a rare beauty. They looked so much like Bela's.


	3. III

 

 

 

 

 

>   **Technology A Bad Thing?**
> 
> **After the development of worldwide technology from 2114-2132 and what was known as "the Robot Revolution," many factory workers lost their jobs as a result of being replaced by machines. The number of homeless people in the USA rose by 17% over a two year period from 2132 to 2134 and at least fifty new homeless shelters had to be added to each city with the accommodation and food no longer free.**
> 
>   1. **Read through this information and make notes in your book.**
>   2. **Why do you think the food was no longer free?**
>   3. **Give 3 examples of technology that would have replaced people's jobs in 2132.**
> 

> 
> **\- USA From Then To Now: 21st-22nd Century, A History Textbook Published in 2150 by Secondary Unite**

 

**Ruby**

 

**********

 

"I swear I'm gonna kill that jerk," said Taylor as they perched on the edge of the small mattress. She held an aggressive look on her face. Taylor was one of the few people who hated Connor more than Ruby. With him on topic, she could change from sweet innocent girl next door, to a warrior queen. Today, she wore her usual white, long sleeved shirt . It suited her well and added to her innocent girl look. She had dark skin and frizzy hair that stuck out all over the face. Taylor had cut it as short as she could without it making her look ridiculous and it still itched at her face. She sat on Ruby's left. On her right was Kitty, Ruby's other best friend. Kitty was the opposite of Taylor. She was tall, Ruby estimated her to be around five foot nine or even more. She was pretty much as pale as you could go and the veins stood out in her face and she had the most strange eye color. It was a washed out shade of blue, practically purple and her hair was bleached blonde with a few pink streaks. Out of the very few clothing items she had, most of hers were sleeveless and low cut in bright colors to show off her large breasts. She had more piercings than Ruby and although she was the girl you wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of, she remained mainly quiet around friends.

"I can't believe he won't leave you alone," Taylor continued.

"Well I'll make sure he does next time. Trust me." She winked. "But you should leave it to me. He doesn't know you that well."

"Even better. He won't be able to give much information to the cops when I'm done with him."

"Well I have to go now. It's my mom's birthday next week and Meg and I are going to try and collect some things so we can celebrate for her."

"I'd better go too." Taylor got up. "I'm trying to get a job at the local laundry place."

"Taylor, you're seventeen and you look like a twelve year old. You're never gonna get the job."

"Nice to have some support from friends."

Ruby sighed. "Come on, I'll walk you there." They began to walk out, leaving Kitty behind, and went straight through the hall. Those lucky enough to be able to pay for breakfast were finishing off the small bowls of porridge provided. They left through the front and Taylor left in her own direction. Ruby began to make her way to the recycling center, ten minutes away, and she turned into an alleyway. It was one of the many shortcuts Ruby knew from years out here. Last year, her and Bela had explored every single street in the city, they used to make their own maps of all the secret routes only they knew.

She passed another poster for one of those bands that everyone loves so much at the moment. Both the title and the band members' faces had been worn away by the rain so it only showed their shoulders, wrapped up in matching grey hoodies. As she reached the turning back onto the main road, she was thrown against the brick wall by two large hands and the stink of beer was breathed in her face.

"Hey babe," Connor slurred. He was incredibly drunk, he even held one beer bottle in his hand.

"Connor, leave me alone."

"Come on babe." He stroked his sweaty hands down her next and pulled at her t-shirt. He began to lift it up and pushed his lips up against hers. His saliva tasted of alcohol and cigarettes. "You know you want it."

She kicked him hard right in between his legs and he yelled as she peeled herself from the wall. She began to walk off, as fast as she could.

"Hey, Ruby, who gives you your cigarettes, huh? Who gave you the hair dye? Don't I get repaid?"

She turned back to him. "Fine, I won't take anymore of that stuff from you! It's coming out anyway and I only used it last, two weeks ago."

"Yeah, well you don't have Bela here anymore to give you anything good now. You don't have girlfriend or big brother here to protect you!" He taunted her and without warning, chased her. He was fast. At least his insect legs and skinny frame were useful for something. Again, he pushed her into the wall and this time she smelt the grime in her hair. It was probably turning the blue to green. He took a knife from his pocket and she gasped. He held a finger to his lips. "Ssh."

"Connor, if you don't put that away, I'm going to scream."

"Look at yourself, no one's gonna come after you. That's right, no one cares."

Ruby felt something. Fear. It was strange, normally she was the one who made people scared. A year ago, if someone told her she would be scared of Connor the Creep, she would have laughed right in their face. Her hands crept free of his grasp and she shoved him in the chest, not as hard as she had kicked him. His knife slipped and cut along her chin and she clutched it in pain. That gave him the chance to regain his balance and he sliced at her again, this time catching her arm. Blood trickled down her wrist, warm and sticky and this time he kicked her to the floor, adding one final kick before the sound of police sirens and he ran.

Ruby lay there face down in the mud. She thought she was dead at first but she was just being dramatic. A few cuts and bruises couldn't kill her. Also, she was aware she was lying on the ground. But she couldn't move. It was the pain maybe. The sound came of a crowd gathering. And then she passed out

 ****** *******

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

Anna scanned herself out of the supermarket. Just that morning, Naomi had run out of eggs. What with it being Summer vacation, the delivery services were being blocked, just for two weeks until everything had been sorted out, so you had to actually go out and get things from the supermarket. Of course her father hadn't been happy about her going, disguising it as his concern for her when it was really just about what would happen to his reputation if his daughter mixed with anyone below the upper levels. Finally, he let her go. Anna had gone to the furthest supermarket she knew the way to, nearly an hour's walk away. She needed time away from her family to clear her head.

As she left the store with her plastic bag and filled with eggs, she began to make her way down the street where a members of the public were gathering in a circle. Police cars pulled up. Someone had been injured? There were no ambulances though. So someone from one of the lower layers, likely. She pushed to the front of the crowd where a middle aged woman with short, brown hair, leaned over an injured woman's crumpled body. She was covered in blood and grime from the ground around her. The woman had her fingers over her wrist, searching for a pulse.

"She's alive," the woman announced and Anna smiled. They were human after all and she cared even if no one else did. She bent down to help her turn the woman's body over. She corrected herself. Not a woman. She was young, no older than 20, with a slender frame. In the sunlight, you could see her hair was blue.

_She looks familiar._

She jolted back as she realized it was the same girl from the homeless shelter. yes, she had the same piercings and that thick, dark make up. Was it even make up? It really did look too thick. They rolled up her sleeves where one of her wounds cut right through a gem tattoo. Was it red before or was it the blood? What had her name been? Ruby. Yeah that was it. She told her to punch someone called Connor in the face.

_He could have done this to her._

Ruby's eyes flickered open and both Anna and the woman helped her stand up.

"Miss, can we have a description of your attacker?" It was a police officer, young and round faced and completely careless about her.

"His name is Connor Ashby-Grey. I know him. He's from the Manhattan St Mary's homeless shelter." She said it with no shame in the fact she was homeless.

_I was right._

"He has brown hair, thick eyebrows, really tall, he must be six three or six four and really skinny. He was drunk and_"

"Yes alright, I think we have enough." Anna understood the officer immediately. He was bored, it was Summer and he still had to go to the office everyday, he couldn't wait to go home. He began to leave and Anna sat her down as people began to vanish. Ruby was hurt badly. It was no wonder she didn't recognize her straight away. The crowd began to disperse and Ruby let out a sort of half groan, half cry, of pain.

"Hey, you're that chick with the muffins," she said. "Anna."

"Congratulations, you remembered my name. I think there should be some medal for that after all, I'm just a posh girl." She laughed. "Sorry.

"I'm Jody," said the woman who had remained with them. "I could call an ambulance but I doubt one will come."

"I'll be fine," Ruby croaked.

"You won't be  _fine._ But you'll live. I can get her some skin spray and bandages and get her home."

Jody nodded at Anna. She obviously trusted her or maybe she saw the state of her clothes and just felt a fear of upper layer girls. Anna wrapped her arm around Ruby's shoulder. The injured girl was a good two inches taller than her and it felt strange to be supporting her.

"Does that hurt?"

"Yes." That was Ruby's answer, as simple as you could get. Anna adjusted herself so she her arm was no longer over Ruby's wound. "Can you be quicker?" she asked as they stumbled along. "I have a sister to look after, she'll be wondering where I am. She fourteen, she's only three years younger than me."

Anna stopped. "How old are you?"

"Just turned seventeen."

Wow. She was only six or seven months older than her. She already looked like an adult.

"I'll go as fast as I can but it's hard when I have to carry you."

"A sense of humor. I like that."

They stopped at another store and Anna went in and bought a can of skin spray, some bandages and a few various food items. As she got Ruby back to the shelter to be greeted by her younger sister who introduced herself as Meg, she handed over all the things she had bought.

"Um thanks, I guess," said Ruby as Meg took a cookie. "Well I suppose, today, believe it or not, I made a friend." She lay down on her mattress and Anna found herself fascinated by a noticeboard above Ruby's head with the most ordinary of objects pinned up such as fragments of a smashed CD and a Chinese takeaway menu. Ruby began to bandage up her arm and took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Meg didn't protest.

"Those things will kill you, you know," said Anna.

Ruby shrugged and a flame crept up from the rusty metal. "I barely have any left, anyway"

A blonde haired woman walked in and saw Ruby lying on the bed. "Ruby, what happened?"

"Connor," Ruby said and the woman just sighed. "Anna, this is my mom and Mom, this is Anna. She helped me get back here, she got some food for us."

"That was sweet of you dear." She smiled at her while looking her up and down. "I'm Lilith. Know you're free to visit any time."

"Well I have to go. I should have been home ages ago." Anna turned away and made her way out. She had every intention of coming back to make sure Ruby was OK and was just about to open the door to the outdoors again when she heard voices from inside Ruby's family's room.

"She's pretty, Ruby. Maybe you should try and see her more. You could get over Bela."

The sound of muffled shouting came after that and Anna turned away, unable to believe her ears. Ruby was...her father talked about them all the time and not in a nice way at all. It was just the way their family was raised. But in a deep part of her heart, she was glad.

 

 

 


	4. IV

 

 

 

 

> **"And yesterday at eleven am, thousands of the homeless marched through the streets of Manhattan, surrounding Times Square. It is said to have been the biggest riot since 2020 and they have been growing more and more violent. They are said to be protesting about the dropping amount of jobs over the last few years and are breaking into various shops and houses. It is now known that they do have weapons and are incredibly dangerous. The death count is still rising and is currently counted as 43, over a hundred have been injured so far. Members of the public are warned to stay in their houses until further news."**
> 
> **-The four 'o' clock news, read by Kevin Tran, broadcasted to the upper layer, 5th June 2135**

 

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

Why did she have so many clothes? It was hardly like she wore them all. All those designer trainers, all those leggings that are so in fashion too, the sleek watches for conveniently being able to use internet and send vidmails and talk to friends anywhere, none of that was her. Maybe that was why perfect Hester with her hair and beauty treatments had hated her so much. It wasn't normal for a sixteen year old to be more interested in religion than fashion and make up. "You should just get used to it, Hester. It's just the way I am and if that makes me a freak, than I'm a freak." That's the answer she should have given Hester but she wasn't that type of girl either. If only she'd done that instead of turning to...she winced at the thought. Anna tapped at her MEDI-band, nervously. It was there as an everlasting reminder of what she had resorted to, the one thing her religion had spent sixteen years teaching her was wrong. Well not everlasting. It came off when she was eighteen. But she didn't care. She just wanted it gone now, just for a sense of freedom.

3pm. Another dose of meds delivered precisely on time. Along came the sting she had grown so used to after a whole semester and a half. The needle retracted from under her skin and into its metal base. She packed a shirt into her bag. It was white with a blue floral pattern embroidered onto the front. Would it fit Meg? No, it would be far too big. Too big for Mrs Masters, too. It would have to do for Ruby. Hardly her type of thing, what with the goth style but it would suit her so well against her dark eyes. She packed in a final hat too and went to her jewellery box. She took out a few various studs and rings and hesitated before stuffing them all into a tiny box which she flung into the bag. She zipped up the old backpack and pulled it up higher over her shoulder. Ruby might as well be grateful. She made her way down the stairs and hopped over their cleaning robot. It was a small thing, a K75 model, and barely reached past her knees. The vacuum tube reached out of its chest and scanned over the floor. The walls leading downstairs were covered with photo frames. She paused at a single frame, or rather many frames on repeat, them when Naomi took her two children to Coney Island, the weekend Zach was at a conference. Cas had never been an ordinary child but she still preferred him back then, the wild nine year old, running around. The camera that had recorded this brief scene of less than thirty seconds, had captured the young boy's innocence perfectly. Anna was the thin looking but still happy eleven year old with her arm around her carefree mother who's auburn hair had escaped from its usual bun and blew in the wind. She was beautiful. "Smile," she mouthed at Anna, the video frame didn't have sound, and the young girl smiled and for once, it wasn't forced.

Zach was talking to a work colleague via vidmail, the home version so that a hologram version of him filled the dining room. For a second, Anna considered stepping right through him but she didn't want to cause any more trouble.

_Typical baby Anna._

The voice in her head sounded almost like Hester. Cas was plugged into his headset, focused completely on some fantasy world of dragons and elves. His blue eyes remained fixed on the nothingness before him.

"Where are you going, sweetheart?" said Naomi, getting up from the sofa. Zach turned round and his colleague paused for a second in the middle of a sentence.

"I'm going to see Jo."

_Why are you lying Anna?_

"Um, Ellen...sh-she invited me round?" It sounded like a question. She corrected herself. "Yes, she invited me round."

"I could drop you."

"Naomi, the girl needs her freedom." Again, Zach wanted her mother staying with him. For once that was to her benefit. "Go on, but be back by 6." He waved her away with yet another false grin and then turned back to his friend.

____________________

And again she was walking these streets. Just a week ago, she had travelled down here with the church youth group, taking the elevator down. She took a different route this time, it went past market stalls where men called out breathlessly, like they had been chanting for hours with no one coming to their stalls. Homeless shelters were cheaper for food, despite the quality of this food being higher. A man lay in the dirt at her feet, clearly passed out, and an inner bully got an urge to kick him. The media made it seem like it was their fault they were all in this alcoholic state but Anna saw no way it could be. News reporters thought they could say what they wanted, thinking that their perfect hair and clothes gave them a right to say what they wanted. She had no doubt that some people from the bottom layer were twice as smart as them.

Why she kept being brought back to the Masters family, she had no idea. But they interested her, strong but kindly Lilith, energetic little Tom who reminded her so much of how Cas used to be, Meg with her attitude and sense of humor, but particularly Ruby. Behind the punk makeup and blue hair, she saw a sophisticated young woman with a true sense of how the world worked. She wouldn't let discrimination against her sexuality stop her.

Ruby was perched on the edge of the pavement and held another cigarette between her full lips. With her hair blowing in the wind, she looked like one of those models you would have seen in cigarette TV adverts before everyone realized how dangerous they were. It was what anyone would expect to see now, a teen rebel going through that phase of dressing in dark clothes. She looked up when Anna arrived.

"Anna?"

Anna crouched down beside her. "Nice to see you, too. Thought you said you were running out."

"Well, when I said that, I meant I only had ten packs left. I'm down to two a day. It's torture. I should be able to get through nearly two months."

"You could try giving it up."

"Have you seen the state of me? I can't give up. I started when I was fifteen thanks to fucking Connor. I'm not denying it. I'm addicted. But, the way I see it, I don't have much life left. I'll die of starvation or I'll get stabbed by some middle layer jerk, or Isaac Reynolds will decide to just get rid of us all for good. Any of those will kill me before cancer. People don't expect it you see, but I'm smarter than they think. IQ of 132. That's classified as very superior. It comes from mom, I guess. And Meg was tested and got the exact same She's strong as well. As Shakespeare said, though she be but little, she is fierce. Sisters are meant to be annoying but I think I trained her well. Do you have any siblings?"

"Yes. A brother, Cas. He's fourteen."

"Same as Meg. Anyway, they still haven't found Connor. It's all his fault, the smoking. He gave the cigarettes to me. He thought he could charm me into dating him."

"Guess he wasn't your type."

Ruby twisted her head. "Are you trying to imply something?"

"Well I overheard a conversation w-with you and y-your mo-mom," Anna stammered. "She said something about a girlfriend named Bela and I thought maybe you were, you know, a...lesbian."

Ruby glared at her. "One, never mention Bela to me. EVER! Two, I'm not a lesbian. I play for all teams if you must know. Guess if you took that in a literal sense, it would make it almost impossible for me to lose." She laughed at Anna's surprised expression. "It's the best way to be. That's what I think anyway. You have a higher chance of getting a boy slash girl slash other friend. If you're one of those people who think finding a partner is the purpose of life, anyway. People are so shocked when they discover. They ask me why I didn't tell them. It doesn't matter in this  _great_ day and age. I've known since I was thirteen for God's sake. Three, there is nothing wrong with saying the words gay or lesbian. Unless you're one of those type of girls, in which case, I'd better run. Here, calm yourself down, have a smoke." She handed Anna a single cigarette and lit it for her. Anna hesitated and then took a puff before coughing everywhere. She tossed it to the floor and stamped it out. Ruby burst into hysterical laughter.

 

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

"So, what are you doing here? Couldn't stay away, huh?"

Sam passed them and smiled before Dean appeared in the doorway and glared at Ruby before offering Anna a flirty smile. He waved and then left again.

"That's Sam," said Ruby. "And his complete asshole of a brother, Dean. Do me a favor, stay away from them. The situation with me and Sam is complicated. We used to date so, you know."

"I don't know, actually. I've never dated before. My parents tried to set me up with various people but, none of them quite did it for me."

Ruby smirked again. "I know how you feel. Sam's the only decent guy I ever met who never called me slut, whore or bitch. And then I have Dean to deal with. As I said, it's easiest to swing in all directions. You get that sensitive side as well, instead of the twenty four seven immaturity."

_What are you doing Ruby? Are you flirting with her?_

"Well, I actually came to drop off some clothes for you. I got twenty credits out the bank for you, too." She handed Ruby the bag who glanced down at it.

"I don't need your charity, angel." She held the white shirt up against herself and smiled. "But I could totally rock this look. Maybe people would see another side to me." She put on the hat to and pulled the hair back from her face.

_I bet I look straight out of a western movie._

"Hey," said Anna, cutting off her thoughts. "Want to try some on?"

For the next half hour, they paraded around the dining room, in variations of the clothes Anna had brought. No one came in or out, luckily enough for them. Lunch hour was well over. Meg came in and joined them halfway through and they danced. And, Anna looked free. She looked younger. Ruby had recognized something missing in her face that very first day they met but whatever it was had returned. As people began to file in for an early dinner, Ruby collapsed into a chair in the corner while Anna lay on the floor with her back against the wall. She had tried out an old blue dress from when she was younger that had been meant for weddings but now could be used as a party dress. At Ruby's suggestion, she had put on a pair of large hooped earrings and tied her hair back with a blue ribbon. She was barefoot. She was like a mermaid in human form with her flowing red hair and pale complexion, like in that really old movie, the little mermaid.

"This takes me back," Ruby panted, ignoring the stares they received. "Before the robot revolution, I remember, my mom worked at a big fashion house. It was over thirteen years ago but I remember. She used to get free samples of her own clothing and we'd try them on at our house and have fashion shows for my dad. Of course, that was when we had a house and my dad was still around."

"What happened?"

"Don't for a second think my mom is stupid. She is the smartest woman you've ever met and no one can tell you otherwise. She was 20 when she met dad. Young and beautiful and wide eyed and...an orphan. But she had so much potential. She left college with a degree in fashion and one in medicine. She was travelling and she met dad. And they hit it off straight away. That's how she told it to me. They gave birth to my brother, Al, a year later. Both of them were thrilled. But dad wanted another boy. For four years, he kept that matter quiet and then they tried again. And, they ended up with me. I was their first failure. Mom loved me but I vaguely remember dad and I'm not so sure. She tried again a year later and got Meg. He was getting angrier and angrier. Mom got pregnant one last time. She was taking loads of time off work what with Al being the only one old enough to start school. But we were fine, dad had a stable job, mom still got paid, she designed in her free time. And then she was fired. They were replacing her with a machine and there was nothing she could do. We still had money in an account but then dad got angry. He said she was cursed to never give birth to another boy. He said he needed more than one person to carry on his legacy. And, he walked out one day. He left mom, six months pregnant and with three kids. He took more than half the money from the shared account and just vanished off the face of the Earth. Mom could only afford to pay for two months more rent with enough money to still feed us, we lived on the middle layer then. She left the flat and we made our way to New York. City of dreams, she said. We walked most of the way and when we got there, we got a small room with the remaining money. It took weeks, months to get here, and we only got a tiny room on the bottom layer. Mom worked as a cleaner for a while in various houses. Al looked after us during the day and Tom had been born by then. Then, along came cleaning robots and suddenly, why employ people when you can employ machines who you don't even have to pay? Genius. Then, she got a job at a middle layer bar as a barmaid but they went out of business when everyone stopped drinking up there. Finally, she sank to the lowest of the low. She got a job at a strip club. Eventually, they said she was too old and goodbye to them. Good riddance too, she said. I used to say I'd get a job there when I was older but she made me swear to never go near one of those places. I agree with her too. It's just telling men that we are their toys, just like they think we are. The complete opposite of feminism. And, for the last ten years, we've been here. Mom gets small low pay jobs, she does makeovers or babysits or occasionally washed clothes for people who can't afford robots. And now you know why I hate the son of a bitch who gave me life, the end."

Anna looked shocked and Ruby couldn't help laughing. She had probably never heard anything in comparison to Ruby's story. Of course she hadn't, she was too busy with her ordinary life with too rich, loving parents. She was probably popular at whatever posh boarding school she went to.

"Well I think your mom's beautiful. How old is she?"

"Fourty three, next week."

"She looks great for her age. So what happened to Al?"

"The worst thing possible." Ruby covered her face with her palms and sighed. Anna stared at her for a while with those green eyes and then reached up and kissed her quickly on the cheek. Ruby stared at her.

"What was that for?"

"You know, good luck. Because I know you could have had it better." She leaned in again and this time, kissed her right on the lips. It was strange, half an hour ago, the girl had shuddered at the mention of homosexuality and now this. She didn't question it. Anna was beautiful. Ruby ended it, pulling away from the redhead's rosebud mouth as everyone turned to stare and her mother walked in with Tom at her side.

"It's getting late," said Anna as her cheeks flushed red. "I have to go, I promised my dad I'd be back by six. See you tomorrow." She whispered the last bit in Ruby's ear and then left. Ruby watched her leave until she was right out of the door and she turned to her mother. Lilith didn't say a word, just went winked then went straight to serve herself.

 

 


	5. V

 

 

 

> ** Missing **
> 
>  
> 
> **Name: Alastair Masters**
> 
> **D.O.B: 8th July 2129**
> 
> **Hair: Brown**
> 
> **Eyes: Blue**
> 
> **Height: 5ft 11"**
> 
> **Weight: 130lbs**
> 
> **Last Seen: September 19th 2150**
> 
> **If you find him or have any information on where he might be, please call A4729OPL**
> 
> **-Missing Homeless Records, 1st December 2150**
> 
>  

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

What was wrong with her? Why had this happened? Was she voluntarily turning against her father's beliefs in an attempt to anger him? Could she be a lesbian? It would explain why she had never had any kind of connection with all those sons of friends her father brought around. or maybe she 'played for all teams' like Ruby said. She had never really been involved in anything like this before. But one thing was certain. She was attracted to Ruby. She had certainly felt something towards her before and Ruby clearly felt something back which she had trouble to believe. It had bothered her for a while now but the moment she had known had been right then as they sat next to each other in the shelter. Why wouldn't she be? Ruby was pretty, Connor was certainly attracted to her as well.

Cas scrambled in, just as she was pulling on some leggings to sleep in.

"Geez Cas! Look away!"

He did not move. "Mom and dad are fighting," he said, under his breath.

"Are you sure it's not just dad doing the fighting?"

He ignored her question and climbed onto her bed beside her. "Are they going to divorce?"

Anna breathed through her teeth. "Mom's not brave enough to do that. Cas, don't let anyone tell you this is mom's fault. We can help her. Maybe one day it will come to her that he's a bad husband. Don't tell her I said that." She stroked her brother's hair and kissed his forehead. "Go on now, off to bed."

"Anna, can I sleep in your bed tonight?" She was about to protest.  The doctors said he needed more independence and he _had_ been sleeping in his own, separate dorm at school. It wouldn't matter for one night. He climbed under the blankets beside her. God, he was tiny. People often mistook him for a ten year old. She reached to switch off the light but he grabbed her hand.

"Anna, do you not care about us?"

"Why would you say something like that, Cas? Of course I care about you."

"Then why did you want to leave?"

She froze and her head snapped towards him. "Who told you that?"

"When you were in hospital, mom said you were there because you were sad and wanted to leave us and you ended up getting hurt."

She moaned. Why would her mother tell him something like that? Honestly, he didn't understand anything despite his age. "Don't ever think that. Don't ever think I don't care about you because, I promise, I'm gonna be here for you. Always."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Again, she went to turn off the light when her smart phone buzzed, letting her know that she must have a vidmail. She unlocked it and checked her mail box. The address was unknown and she slid her eyes down the message.

_Hey Anna,_

_I'm using the network at the shelter and it costs a credit for every ten minutes so I',m going to have to be quick. I found your mail ID online. Sorry. I was wondering if you wanted to meet up with me at some point tomorrow because, how can I say this, I think I like you too. I'm free all day. If you get this, message me back as soon as possible._

_Ruby x_

That surprised her. She would have thought maybe Ruby wouldn't want to see her again. Lucky for her, anyway. She thought for a moment. She quickly typed back a message.

_Hello Ruby_

_I would like to meet up with you again, too. I actually have an idea. Could you meet me at Herald Square Station at 10am. I promise you'll be back by 6._

_Anna xx_

The message quickly sent. She had not even bothered to tell her what they were going to do. But she had an idea.

"Who were you messaging?" Cas asked with wide eyes.

"Just Jo." She was lying to him as well. Why? She was sure he would not tell either of her parents. He spoke to them far less than he spoke to her. But just in case. "Come on. We'd better sleep, now."

____________________

It was 10am and Ruby was here, just as she said she would be. She barely recognised her at first. In the distance, she saw a woman in a white shirt and hat. The shirt was the lace one she had lent her and it showed a completely new side of the girl. Was she dressed like this to impress Anna? She had washed off her make up and her face did not look bare but it held a natural beauty. She still had her piercing but, were those Anna's earrings. In each ear, she had a cross. She remembered packing those for her. Her hair gave her away, in all its blueness but she had brushed it and tied it back into a ponytail.

She greeted Anna with a smile and then a wave as she walked closer.

"So, what are we doing here?" There was amusement in her voice.

"Not telling. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise." She took Ruby's hand to drag her along and then shifted her hand up so it held the other girl's wrist instead. They both went through the barriers, scanning their chips over the reader. It was funny how Ruby would have a chip when she was practically never allowed to come in a place as grand as a subway station or even a supermarket. She couldn't hang out on the middle layer much and those who officially lived on the bottom layer were not allowed anywhere near the upper layer.

"So you're buying me a train ticket? I hope the cops don't think I stole it."

"Why would they think that?"

"Because I can't afford one." She said it like it was so obvious. "For Meg's birthday, a year ago, I saved up enough to buy her a treat so I went to some cheap supermarket in middle layer. I got her some dehydrated chinese food and the biggest tub of ice cream you've ever seen. It was one of those sectioned ones with all the different flavors. Anyway, I was on my way home, got stopped by some policewoman who took me in and I had to stay in the station for a few hours. It was worse 'cause I kinda have a criminal record."

"Kind of?"

"You know. A bit of stealing here, a bit of trespassing there, nothing too serious really."

"Wow, I've kissed a criminal." She regretted her words as soon as they left her lips but Ruby didn't bat an eyelid. Anna went up to the ticket desk and payed the boy who handed her two tickets for the bullet train but his eyes did not leave Ruby. They got on board the first train which arrived just seconds later.

"Thank God, we got away from that freak at the ticket desk," Ruby said as they pulled away from the station. "He was checking out my boobs the whole time. Reminds me of what it was like with Connor before he took off. Honestly, it feels like boys chase me wherever I go." A few women stared at one, some gave Anna sympathetic looks. Of course they were, seeing sweet, virgin Anna, and then Ruby and judging her immediately on the hair. Maybe they thought she was a bully who Anna was desperately trying to impress. Anna did not meet their eyes.

"So you gonna tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"What that kiss was about and where the Hell it came from?" Ruby's voice was as loud as usual. She really had no shame in this and it almost made Anna glad. Maybe, it would be easier for everyone else to accept her if it were this easy for Ruby.

"Well, I think I'm a lesbian." She lowered her voice at the last word and Ruby smiled.

"Again with the 'thou shalt not mention the gay' thing? Do your parents, know?"

"I can't tell them! Do you know what they'd do? Anyway, I only discovered yesterday. I'm not even sure if it's true yet."

"I think kissing me tells you all the truths you need to know. Girl, you're gonna have all the  _girls_ after you. But you have to realize, there's nothing wrong if you don't like boys. I mean, there's no actual law that all girls must love boys."

"God commanded that woman must marry man."

"So you're the religious type are you? What I meant is there's no law now. Anyway, who's talking about marriage?"

"No one."

"OK then." They stared at each other for a while before remembering the presence of the two old women. Anna turned her head to look out of the window. The skyline of New York was appearing, the Empire State Building, as tall as ever and the dome modernising the scene. Ruby changed the subject. "This train sure moves fast. You gonna tell me where we're going yet?"

"Be patient, Ruby. We've been gone for five minutes. Your clue is that this will take half an hour."

"Oh, that's a great clue since I haven't been on a train since I was playing with dolls."

Anna tried to picture Ruby playing with dolls, minus the piercings and saw a four year old in a pink princess dress with bright blue hair. She laughed at the image and then found herself staring at Ruby's many piercings.

"I did them myself, you know," Ruby said when she caught on to what Anna was thinking. "With a needle and ice. It hurt like Hell and I made it bleed everywhere. I did the ears first, two in each ear because I made a mistake both the first times. Some girl said I looked like a punk and that got me listening to punk music. Ever heard of Black Rose?"

"No."

"You wouldn't have. The 'community' don't think they're appropriate so they're kind of kept to people like me. And they all were people like me. All four band members, they were all homeless and now look at them Their signature fashion is with black lace gloves and lots of piercings. They've been around for quite a while now. My whole style is based on their lead singer, Cleo. Believe it or not, she had more piercings than me, black make up and black lace gloves. Only difference, she has purple hair. I didn't want to copy her exactly. So, basically, I pierced my ears more times when I was fifteen, and my nose too. I found a guy who gave me a tattoo for free. Mom still doesn't know about it. I put together my outfit from stuff I found in the trash and I died my hair with Be_" She stopped. Her eyes were watering. She shook her head, acting like she had never brought up the subject.

"Oh look, we're here."

 

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

So this was it. Coney Island. Her mother used to read her stories where the characters visited here. Movies were set here. If she ever became a director, she had promised herself, she would film at least one scene in each movie here...unless it were a fantasy movie set in the distant past, or a sci-fi in a galaxy far far away. But this was not how she expected it to look. The beach was still there, and one small ferris wheel, but where was the fairground? Where were the stores and small attractions. No, this was now a high street with magnatrams and cars and trash everywhere. In fact, a big junkyard stood where the fairground _should_ have been. But still, Anna had made the effort to bring them here and, for that, she was grateful. Anna had noticed the problem too, and immediately dragged her in the direction of the sea.

"Hey, fancy some fries?"

"I've never tried them before."

"You're kidding, right?"

Ruby shook her head.

"That's it, I'm getting us a large fries to share." She rushed through the sand with her olive green jacket flapping in the wind and chased after her. Grains of sand flew in her eyes. Anna was already at the front of the queue.

"One large fries, please."

Their server held up two fingers and turned to take their food from the fryer and into a container. As it was set before them, Anna sprayed it with salt, vinegar and ketchup. Ruby took one, while she was still rifling through her purse and placed it in her mouth, coated in tomato. She crunched on it.

"Holy shit," she said with a mouthful of food. "This is the best thing I've ever tasted.

Anna laughed. "Hey, leave some for me." They went to sit on a wall, taking it in turns to choose fries.

"I'd better enjoy this experience. I'm never gonna get to try fries again."

"Don't be so negative."

"It's true though. Have you seen the food the shelter served."

"Nothing's impossible though."

"True. So what's up with your bracelet? Is it some new fashion thing?"

"Ruby, just leave it." Anna gripped her silver wristband, tightly, between her fingers.

"Can I try it on?" She reached out to grasp it.

"No. Ruby, you can't try it on."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Because it's all that's keeping me alive!" she yelled. She turned away blushing.

"You don't have to tell me the rest if you don't want to. I'm not gonna force you."

"No. It's fine." She took a deep breath. "It happened in February. I go to a boarding school, you see. Lauren Parker, school for girls."

"Meg got a sandwich from your train a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, she did. I gave it to her. I recognized her when I saw her at the shelter. Anyway, at my school, there was a girl named Hester. She was blonde, popular and I was, well, unpopular. She was richer than me and she used to get beauty jabs and she got all those treatments so you can change the color of your eyes and things. She thought it was funny that I'm so interested in religion. And I used to practise my cello when I could have been hanging out with friends. It started off with name calling. Everyone called me freak. Then, they came up with this thing of poking me. Then, hair pulling, tripping me over, pouring food on my head. Eventually, I couldn't leave my dorm, it got so awful. Hester had all the teachers wrapped around her finger. I couldn't tell them. And my dad wouldn't care. He only cares about his stupid reputation. Hester started throwing me in the lake and in dumpsters, one time, she put green hair dye in my shampoo. Then, she abandoned me in the woods. We went on a trip to town one day. This man saw me. He saw me on my own and he got talking to me. I was so depressed by then that I just told him everything. And he gave me a bottle."

"A bottle of what?"

"X."

"You mean..."

Anna nodded. "I'd considered suicide before. I used to have this picture in my mind of a teacher walking into class and letting everyone know I was dead and everyone would start cheering. Morbid, I know. There were no ropes around school. I had no access to pills and there were no knives or high places I could jump from. He said it would be easy and knock me out straight away. Like going to sleep but not waking up this time. He gave me the needle I needed and I did it one day while everyone was at lunch. Unfortunately, you need to be strong to stay conscious through the whole process. Basically, I passed out halfway through. There was a girl, Jo. Back then, we barely knew each other but now, we're best friends. She came to tell me that lessons were starting and she found me. Next thing I know, I woke up in hospital two weeks later. The X was poisoning my blood and they had to clear it. So they gave me medication. Happy juice so I have no more 'suicidal tendencies' plus something that will slowly rid my blood of the stuff. I don't get my MEDI-band off until I'm eighteen. Hester was expelled and mom got me to stay at home until the Summer semester. I wasn't meant to go back to school until I was a junior but I insisted. I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this. I barely know you Ruby."

"No, it's OK. Now it's time for you to hear my sad, sad story if that will make you feel better." She felt regret for the poor girl. She moaned the whole time but Anna had been through so much worse. Status said nothing for how you really feel. "I have to warn you, my tale's far shorter." She began. "You know I told you about Al? My brother? Well, he vanished in September. We had no idea where he was or what happened to him and we couldn't even put up posters. We had no photos of him. He was put on a website but that was it. And then along Bela. Her family moved from England and made the same mistake as us, leaving them homeless. She was like me, if you get what I mean. We got really serious. She helped me look after my family as well as deal with Al's disappearance. She had pink hair. I used to think we were soul mates."

"So what happened?"

"Her family got money from some rich relative, moved to Queens. I never saw them again. I think your story wins the sympathy vote." She took another fry. "Mind if I finish these?"

"Go ahead."

Ruby scooped up the last handful. "Well this has been a strangely depressing day. Fancy lightening the mood. Want to go in the waves?" The tide came in as if it had just heard Ruby at that point, rolling right up to their ankles. Ruby tossed the empty container to the side and grabbed Anna's hand. They rushed into the waves. The salty water soaked straight through their jeans, leaving the skin stinging and going straight into their shoes which Anna kicked away, followed by Ruby. Ruby's hat fell off.

"Shit!" she yelled but it was soft and she laughed. Sh fell face down and let her shirt soak as well. Anna fell straight on top of her and rubbed salt from her eyes, splashing the taller girl.

"I'll get you for that!" Ruby called out and began to chase the redhead, letting herself fall again. Anna pointed and laughed and, in response, Ruby sent more water flying in her direction. Anna finally offered her a hand and she stood up. There was an awkward silence between them before Ruby wrapped her arms around the other girl's waist and she let their lips brush against each other. Their tongues met and people began to walk past. A boy wolf whistled but Ruby could see a woman smiling at them in the corner of her eye. The broke away but Anna kept her arm on Ruby's shoulder and held out her smart phone.

"What are you doing?"

"I want a picture to remember this by. I think people in the twenty first century would have called it a selfie." As she loaded the camera on the small device, Ruby pressed her bare lips against Anna's pale and wet skin on her cheek. Anna just grinned at her and pressed a button. There was a flash of light and Anna revealed the 'selfie'.

"Oh God. Delete that. Delete that now."

"No. It's cute. I'm keeping this."

 


	6. VI

 

 

> ** How far would you go to save your family? **
> 
> **Is your life so pointless that it's not even worth living anymore? Are your family starving to death with not enough money? We understand that these are very depressing notices but we would like to let you know about the process "warping" where you can continue living in a "half alive" state as well as helping your family. All money will go to your family and they do not even have to know. Please call 83SL95GG or mail to IMK5.LO.**
> 
> -An advert for 'warping' hidden on the network, March 2150

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

"OK, so now you've got to show me the perks of living the high life, it's my turn." Ruby had her hand as they stepped back of the bullet train. The clock on the front of the station let them know that the time was half past three. "Prepare to see 'low life'."

You could move between various layers using an elevator mostly or occasionally stairs. It did not matter as they all had a chip scanning system, not letting anyone from the bottom layer above layer 3. As someone who lived on layer 2, Anna was permitted access to most areas. Sadly, it meant that Ruby would never be allowed to visit her.

They were not the only ones in the elevator. There was a middle aged woman, possibly from layer 3 or 4. She held a small dog, a sausage dog, on a leash and eyed them suspiciously, just like the women on the train. Again, probably wondering why these two, different girls were hanging out together. A beep came, announcing they had arrived and Ruby led her out to the now, almost familiar streets of the bottom layer, making sure they were a good distance ahead of the woman.

"I present to you, Manhattan harbor." Anna leaned over the rusty railings so she was able to see the ground below her, a small sliver of ground beside a stretch of water of a murky, green color. And, if you looked further out, structures in the water, panelled with silver and with cruise ships of types. Music and bright lights shone out from them. And on the beach area, small figures waded into the water, children perhaps.

"What?"

"You thought Coney Island was bad."

"Yes, but what happened?"

"I figure that when the city split into layers, people just stopped caring when snobs like you stopped coming down here to keep away from disgusting 'roughies' like us." Roughies was a term for homeless, slang used mostly by people from the middle layer. Anna shuddered at Ruby talking this way about herself.

"Anyway, people started spending all their money on luxuries, like that." Ruby pointed out to the structures. "For tourists, rich tourists of course. This is where you'd find your smartphone that was two weeks out of date, your headset that was just not the right shade of pink."

"Why do you have to be so rude to me all the time?" Anna folded her arms.

"Honey, I'm rude to everyone. It's part of my personality. I wouldn't be me if I wasn't. I guess it's just worse with you since you're hot." Her words came out so casually. "You're a beautiful person, Anna. You really need to start believing it. It's true."

Anna nodded but she clearly didn't think it was true. "So why are those people going in the water? It looks disgusting!"

"I'll show you, come on." She pointed at a set of narrow stairs at the end of the walkway that seemed to be able to lead them down to the beach area. Ruby was stepping down two at a time. She was fast. Anna followed, more unsure than the other girl, until they arrived. And yes, the small figures had been children, small children as well, no older than six or seven.

"What are they doing?"

"All your trash ends up in there. They're bound to find something they can sell, right?"

"But why kids?"

"Only job open to them."

"Why do they need a job in the first place?"

Ruby sighed and settled herself in the sand that was barely sand, all made up of rocks and other things. "You see, the thing you don't understand is how our world works. In your world, you've had generations of adults living just like you. Employers see that on your record, they think 'that girl must be smart, she should get the job'. They don't give a shit about us. It doesn't matter how clever or suited to the job we are. It's right there on our chips in our arms, our status. You get to work in fancy offices, you've never known in any other way. We're you're cleaners. We're your barmaids. We're your strippers. We're worthless. A weekly shop for you costs, what? Forty credits? If we're lucky, we earn that much in a month and even then, some needs to be spent on the rent at the shelter. It's cheap but takes away at least two meals from our weekly routine. And that's what it's all about in this world, isn't it? Luck. You're the lucky ones and we're not. It's as simple as that." She sighed. "Some people deserve so much more. But we can't always get what we want, can we? That's what your mom probably said to you when you couldn't have a third pony." Then she sighed again, realizing her mistake. "Sorry. Now I've taken us into the blues, it's my job to lighten the mood again. You want a go?"

"At what? At going in there?" She gestured to the green water."

"What? Worried you'll get your hair wet?"

"No." She began to slip her shoes off and got up.

"Hey, hey. Wait. You can't go in barefoot. You'll slice your feet right open. You're gonna have to get a pair of boots. It's OK, I used to work here, too." Smiling at Anna's shock, she went to a man standing at a sort of stall at the side. She began to talk to him and he was certainly smiling like he knew her. Anna could not quite hear their words but the mutters sounded friendly enough. Ruby returned to her with two pairs of boots and a metal bucket.

"What are you waiting for?"

Anna began to slip on the boots which came almost up to her knees, while Ruby tried on the other pair which fitted her perfectly. They seemed to be a smaller size and better quality, too. Another admirer of Ruby, possibly. Of course she didn't blame them. It was clear on both the outside and inside, if you were brave enough to look past the piercings and blue hair.

"So what am I looking for?" Anna asked as she got up again and neared the tide.

"Anything. Absolutely anything. Shards of glass or pottery, used batteries, even stones will do as long as they're big and smooth." She strode ahead, in front of her, until the water came up to her knees, and she rolled up her jeans before bending over and sticking her hands in the mud that made the bed of the water. Anna began to follow her example and, immediately, her hand met something hard. It was just a load of rocks though and not even smooth ones like Ruby had said. Hard, rough edged rocks maybe broken away from others. She set them back among the mud and tried again before yelping in pain. Her finger came away with a scratch which little beads of blood dribbled from. She reached her hand back down but this time being far more careful and dislodged the glass. It was a large shard and clear and apart from one sharp edge, completely smooth.

"Ruby," she called and Ruby came stumbling over. She revealed the glass to her.

"Nice. You're a real pro at this, Anna. Put it in the bucket but be careful not to break it."

Listening closely to Ruby's instructions, she placed the glass in the bottom of the bucket, only to continue. A pack of dehydrated rice, empty of course but still could be useful. She dropped that in the bucket with the glass. Another piece of glass. A white spotted pebble. A pair of broken headphones. A coat hanger. A small mirror. A pair of scissors (which she almost stepped on). A takeaway box, a plastic folder, something called a credit card and a woman's hat, unwearable but recognizable. As they fished out a tennis ball, she grinned at Ruby.

"I-I didn't realize how much there was in here."

"I know. And the saddest thing is, you couldn't even get a tenth of the original price for these."

"Oh my." There was a moment of silence between them in which Anna found herself just wishing, praying for something better for Ruby. And then she spoke up again. "So where do we sell these?"

"The marketplace. Forty-second street."

"You don't mean the black market do you?"

"Of course not. It's just an ordinary market where we can sell things to people  _luckier_ than us. I mean, occasionally, you'll find a deal there that seems too good to be true. First thing to remember, it probably is. Those stalls are all related to the black market, somehow. We just stand there until someone buys something from us. You ready to go?"

"Give me a second." Anna put her hand under the surface of the water, one final time. A shape loomed below there, larger than anything they'd seen before. She pulled it out. It was large and heavy. It took both hands.

"Are you fucking kidding me? What is that?"

"A keyboard...I think."

"No way. It's too big. And what's that whole top bit for?"

"It's a, what's that word?" She thought, just for a few moments. "A typewriter. We learned about them in history. From the twentieth century, I think. They were before SNAP-PADs, before even computers. People used to type with them."

"Wow. That must've been a long time ago."

"It was. They still had black and white movies."

"Well if no power's needed for it, we might be able to get it working. It could go for a lot of money to some artist or engineering addict. Good job. Come on."

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

"So what do you think?"

"I'm not really sure. When you said market, this wasn't what I expected." Anna took a moment to push her headband further up her forehead.

"Well I'm just full of surprise is, aren't I?" Of course this had not been what Anna expected, what with the equivalent to this place on layer 2. It was a square of her stalls held up by lampposts that had snapped in half and the covers were different umbrellas, stitched together. Smoke rose from the rooftops of the shacks that surrounded them, all barely six feet tall so anyone who lived in them would have to crouch and all with slanting roofs, so that they were nearly blinded. The area stank of urine and worse and men gave them strange, toothy smiles. Ruby squeezed her hand and in that, tried to promise her that she would keep them both safe.

"Hey beautiful." A man with grey stubbled growing on his chin and with gold teeth as well as a hat pulled low over his eyebrows, swayed up to them. Anna seemed to be trying to ignore him and kept her eyes firmly on a point in the distance.

"What you sellin', hey?"

Anna still refused to look at him.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you, sweet'eart. Y'know, it's rude to ignore people, ain't that right?"

She looked down at him, coldly but still with fear. "Leave me alone."

"Leave you alone? That ain't gonna happen darlin' til you tell me what you're sellin'." He reached for her skinny neck and she gasped. "It ain't that 'ard. Just tell me, go on love."

"Can't you see she doesn't want to talk to you, you dick?"

"This ain't none of your business, beautiful."

"I think you'll find you bothering my girlfriend is my business."

Anna's eyes grew wide like she was shocked she had just called her her girlfriend. She still was not adjusted to their whole relationship.

"Ah, so that's the deal, is it? Didn't know your kind were still around."

"Oh don't you worry. Our _kind_ are still around and fully functioning."

"Don't talk like that to me."

She spat at him. "Or what?"

In response his hand met with her stomach, knocking the breath out of her body as she collapsed to the ground. She heard the laughter of a few other men and she climbed back up, her hand closing into a fist. She got him twice, once in the stomach and once on the nose and as he reached to stop the blood, she kicked him, right in between his legs. He doubled over, screaming.

"Bitch! Go to Hell!"

"Sorry. Already been. Well actually, it was worse than Hell. Come on Anna." She started dragging the smaller girl away, trying to ignore the man's yells.

"Are you OK?" A girl approached them. She was maybe a few years older than them with ginger hair, like Anna's, but in a lighter shade. She wore a checked shirt and ripped jeans. "I saw what that man did to you."

"We're fine."

"Good. I'm Charlie by the way."

"I'm Anna." Anna began the introductions. "This is Ruby."

"Yeah, your girlfriend, right? I heard what you said. You guys make a really cute couple. I...play for your team if you know what I mean. I try not to let my whole life revolve around it. I have a girlfriend too, Dorothy. We both live on layer 4. We're trying to get into some college on layer 3 together."

"Oh, cool."

"Yeah. So what you got in that bucket?"

"Some stuff. From the harbor," Ruby answered.

"A typewriter," said Anna.

"Seriously?" Charlie checked and then nodded. "Oh my God, I've been wanting to fix up one of these for ages. I like fixing up things."

Ruby shared a grin with Anna. She had been right.

"I'll pay you for it. Will twenty credits do?"

Ruby gasped. That was a lot of cash. "Ask Anna. She's the one who found it."

"That's fine. I'm fine with that."

"Great." She handed them a note and took the typewriter from them, struggling with its weight. "Well, here's my number if you want a nice chat, lesbian to lesbian. Adios bitches." She left them and Ruby stuffed the paper with Charlie's number in her pocket.

"She seemed nice," said Anna.

"Very nice."

_Bela was like that._

"I should probably get back home. I've been gone all day."

"You can come to my place, quickly. Meg's been dying to see you."

"Are you joking? She saw me yesterday."

"She likes you. I think it's after the whole sandwich thing. I promise I'll have you back at your mansion by seven."

**____________________**

"Oh Ruby. Is this your new love interest?" Dean approached them with his usual sarcastic smile.

"Shut up, Dean." She did not have time for anything else, no insults today.

"Getting tired of old demon breath?" He was speaking to Anna and he winked. Ruby rolled her eyes. "I can see how you chose her. _Way_ prettier than Sam." He returned to addressing Anna. "I'm Dean Winchester and this is my brother, Sammy. Talk to me if you need anything."

"Dean, could you leave us alone." It wasn't a question.

"Sure, take all the time you'd like, ladies." He began to make his way out with Sam at his side, glancing over his shoulder as he went.

"Yeah, so that's Dean and Sam. As I said, earlier, we used to date. That was before...you know." They went inside the Masters room, empty apart from Meg who perched at the end of the mattress and jumped up when she saw them.

"Anna!"

"Hey Meg." Anna gave her a type of awkward hug before going to sit beside Ruby. Meg left the room. "So this is where you sleep?"

"Yeah. Meg and I share the mattress." She felt around under the bed for her cigarette packet and her fingers closed around it.

"Black Rose, huh?"

"Yeah. I mentioned them earlier. Once I sneaked into a concert. It's where I got that lace glove. Some super fan tried to throw it at the stage and failed miserably." She pointed at the noticeboard over the mattress which held various precious objects of hers, including the menu from the one time they had enough money to get a takeaway, and a Christmas card.

"What's this?"

"What's what?" Ruby turned her head to see Anna with a scrap of paper in her hand. "No Anna. You can't look at that! That's_"

"Warping?"

"What, you thought it was just a fairytale?"

"How can you be so casual about it? I can't believe you would even consider doing that to yourself, no matter how awful your life is. You would give up your life source, your body?"

"No different from what you did. What if I had a good reason?"

"Yes, to feed your family. There are better ways to do it then that." Anna was staring at her so furiously. Her skin was stretched across her delicate bones.

"Not just for them. For Bela."

"What, your ex-girlfriend who lives in Queens? What has this got to do with her?"

"I lied! I lied, OK. Her family's living in Queens." Ruby took a deep breath. "She sold her life. She let them warp her. She...she didn't even tell me." A tear rolled down her cheek. "We went out for months. We were in love and then one night I got a letter. She told me what she was doing and I couldn't stop her. We were soulmates, you know. I never even got a chance to say goodbye and that's the truth. I want to be with her. I believe in an afterlife of a type and I believe that if I do this, we'll be together for an eternity. And my family will be able to live happily ever after."

"Oh my. I'm so sorry." Anna hugged her. No other words could soothe her pain but she tried. They kissed gently, a spark of energy burst between them and fireworks exploded through her brain. Nothing would help though.

"Ruby. I understand what happened. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose someone you were so close with. My Grandmother died a few years ago but I barely knew her and she was old. It would have happened sooner or later. But this, it's not natural. I'm sorry. Please." She grabbed her girlfriend's hand. "Please, promise me you won't do this."

Ruby took a deep breath. "I promise."

"OK." She got up, ready to go, "I'll see you again, tomorrow. Meet me by the stairs from layer 2 to layer 3, in Brooklyn. The ones near my house." She kissed her one final time and then turned her back on her, once again. But as soon as she left, all Ruby could do was stare at the paper in her hand. Warping.

 


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for late publishing, been busy with school, revision, etc. Next chapter published next Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> **Name: Rebecca Ranowitz                              D.O.B: 19th September 2108                               Date of Crime Committed: 4th June 2135**
> 
> **Address: St Mary's Homeless Shelter, 8 Elizabeth Street,Layer 5, Manhattan, New York           Crime: Murder of five men and two women**
> 
> **Sentence: Death Penalty                               Trial: 5th January 2136                                        Date of Execution: TBA**
> 
> **Lawyer Details: Marcus Labell, 17 23rd Street, Layer 2, Manhattan, New York, MSL4.BR, 9JO322FR**
> 
> **Statement:**
> 
> **I confess that in the excitement of the riots which I was involved in, I, unintentionally, killed seven people from the upper layers. I only meant to wound them but I was unaware of my own strength and knocked them too hard over the head. I admit, everything was my fault and I could not be more sorry for my crime. I just hope I get justice for my crime.**
> 
> **Turn over to see more**
> 
> -The criminal record of Rebecca Ranowitz after her trial, updated 6th January 2136

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

Where was it? Her smart phone was gone. It had just vanished. She crawled under the bed, feeling around in the darkness but it was gone. She got up and shook her messy hair from her face. She had to meet Ruby in less than half an hour now. She had to think. When did she last have it? The night before, she had been looking through their photos on the beach. Had been about to send the kissing 'selfie' to Ruby. She had had her mail ID open, well the one Ruby had at the shelter, anyway. She had been about to press send when her mother had come in to tell her to sleep and she had gotten into bed, leaving her smart phone open on the floor.

She gasped as she stared out into the early morning traffic of Brooklyn through her window. It reached right up from the floor to the white painted ceiling and gave her a view of the many layers of streets and roads beneath her. From here, the harbor looked more appealing than from close up as the structures in the water could catch her eye.

Who could have taken it? Cas maybe? Or...

"Anna? Oh good, you're awake." Her mother entered the room behind her with her auburn hair falling to her shoulders and her lips pursed. "Your father and I need to have  word with you." Naomi's eyes were glassy and filled with more fear than she had ever seen before. Puzzled, confused but also, more scared than her mother, she followed her. Each step, she took slowly, ever delaying the time between herself and her father. Zach stood, tapping his foot on the shiny white floor of their sitting room. As she neared him, she saw a flicker of anger cross his lips. Cas was nowhere to be seen.

"Wonderful, the technology we have nowadays, isn't it Anna?" he remarked as she arrived and a sense of dread filled her. "In ten years, who knows what we'll get? Flying cars, teleporters, time machines?" He nodded to his wife and Naomi went to stand beside him.

"We've been worrying about you for the last semester, Anna. After all those things that happened to you."

_You might have been worried but he wasn't._

"For the last few days, you've been going out. Last week, you went to the homeless shelter. Every other day after that, you've been at Joanna's, or so you told us. We called Ellen. Such a nice woman but she hasn't seen you. Not since the end of school. Fifty years ago, children vanished all the time. You had no idea where they had gone. Do you know the reason why we let you out on your own, Anna? Because, we know we can track where you were last, thanks to your chip. You went to Coney Island yesterday. We wondered why you hadn't told us, maybe we could have come with you. We thought maybe you had a lover or_"

"Naomi, please." Zach held up a hand, silencing the woman and took a small and thin object from his pocket. Her smart phone, she realized. It was open on her mail account, the photo of her and Ruby, together, flashing large across the screen. "Who is this girl?"

Anna just sat there in silence staring at her parents for a moment. Zach was shaking with fury, Naomi had her hand hovering over his shoulder, ready to try and stop him if he got too out of control.

"Answer me, girl."

If she were Ruby, she would come up with a witty comment or otherwise punch him like she had with the man yesterday. But that was not her.

And then, out of nowhere, he slapped her. His hand collided with her forehead and she flew across the room, thanks to her light frame, and smashed hard into the wall. She had known he did this to her mother. But never to her, not since she was a little girl.

"Zach, please." Naomi took this opportunity to grab her husband's shoulder but he shook her off.

"We raised you well!" he yelled. "As a good Christian girl. We gave you everything you could have ever wanted and this is how you repay us? You make a fool of us! You're out of control! This is a sin." He stood over her, placing one hand on her stomach and holding her down, the other over her mouth. "The Devil. The Devil has influenced her."

 _You call this religion?  Loving who you want is forbidden in religion._ All the words she wanted to say, the words she could not say bounced around her head along with the pain of the slap. With wide eyes, she stared at her mother, pleading without speaking. It was all there. Why can't you leave him if this is the way he treats you?

Zach got up, leaving her just lying there. Did he really care, about her? Or was it his reputation, once again? Was it so awful to have a lesbian for a daughter, for him? In that moment, she realized what pure hate was and it burned behind his devilish green eyes. He opened his mouth to speak again, when, in a blur, something leapt through the air, landing, clinging to his suit. Cas! Naomi stood there, at the side, watching silent and not even attempting to hurt. Cas was vicious, clawing at Zach's suit, his small frame helping for once. His head bent over and her father yelped. Cas had bitten him. He twisted his had to her, dodging another swipe to knock him away.

"Anna, run!" He clung on with steady hands and Anna ran. She grabbed the bag she had packed for her day out with Ruby and just ran. She heard a heavy thump as Cas finally fell to the floor and she prayed silently that he would be fine, shaken with guilt. She sprinted down the path, ignoring every strange look she received from passers by, either from her tears or the bruise on her head. Some of them she even knew. But what to do now, she did not. She was weak. She was willing to accept that. In sixteen years, she had never once denied it. Ruby was strong, just as she had proven in the market yesterday. A warrior princess, standing next to Anna. And she certainly looked the part. So she made for the stairs between layer 2 and 3 where she had promised to meet Ruby, hurtling down them like her life depended on it, which, if she were to be dramatic, was true.

"Whoah Anna. Are you OK? Why are you crying? And what happened to your head?" Ruby stood before her with her hands placed firmly on her hips and wearing a dark colored band t-shirt.

Anna stared at her and wiped a tear from her eye. "Ruby, we have to go."

"Why, what's wrong?"

She looked around quickly, checking that she was not being chased. "We just...need to go." And she grabbed the other girl's hand and pulled her along the concrete that made up the pavement. She would never get used to the streets around here but for now, there was nothing she could do. Around the side of a cinema and behind two recycling machines, the two of them crouched and Anna realized she was still clutching Ruby's hand. Panting heavily, she dropped it and collapsed against the brick wall.

"You gonna tell me what's wrong now or are we just gonna stare into each other's eyes all day?"

"You don't understand. It was...it was my dad. He found out about us."

Ruby nodded. "And?"

"And he beat me and threw me to the floor. He hates me. He made that pretty clear. If it hadn't been for my brother, Cas, then who knows where I would be now. Is that enough information for you?" Thinking about it hurt, just made her see the wild look in her father's eyes again and try to think of her brother's fate."

"Are you serious?" She gripped Anna's shoulder reassuringly. "I didn't know people like that existed anymore. Are you sure he's not been replaced by an evil, homophobic robot, intent on destroying all lesbos?"

"Not a good time, Ruby. And could you please not use that language to talk about us?"

"Sorry," Ruby apologized. "So what are you gonna do now? The safest thing would be to turn in that direction and walk away. Never look at me again, never see me again. I want you to be happy and maybe if we didn't see each other anymore, they could forgive you. Don't get me wrong, I would miss having your ass around here but it's your choice."

Anna thought for a moment. On one hand, she could go back. It was what Ruby really wanted for her. Maybe if she got back fast enough, she would be able to stop Cas getting hurt. But would things really get better for any of them? Would his fights with Naomi continue? And if she left Ruby, who knew what would happen? She could end up with Connor again or worse, actually sell her life. She could not let that happen. As much as Anna needed Ruby keeping her happy and strong, Ruby needed Anna to stop her falling to pieces again. And, she loved her. Having watched enough tv soaps, she knew she could not tell Ruby this, not straightaway. And anyway, Ruby still loved Bela, despite her being gone. Finally, she looked back into Ruby's dark brown eyes and shook her head.

"No. I'm going to stay. I need to stay with you. Please."

Ruby sighed. "OK, so what now? I could take you back to the shelter."

"No. They have my phone. They have the address of the shelter. And they don't have your name but I'm pretty sure there's only one girl there with blue hair and piercings."

Suddenly, shouts came from the end of the street. Ruby slid her head around the corner and then quickly back.

"Shit. The cops. How did they find you?"

"I don't know. I...oh no." Anna held out her wrist so that the light pulsing of her chip was visible beneath the skin.

"Please don't tell me you scanned yourself down here."

"Well how else was I met to come down? There are barriers between each level you know."

"Well I don't know. Jump over? OK we need to get out of here and get that removed. What could we do?" Ruby began rummaging around in her pockets, letting a small scrap of paper fall to the ground.

"What's that?" Anna picked it up. "Charlie's number."

"Charlie? Oh that chick from the market yesterday. You want to call her?"

"Well I don't have a phone but it seems like the only choice we've got."

"And what do you say we tell her exactly?"

Anna shrugged. "The truth. She knows the streets better than you and I."

Ruby looked at her for a second. "Take me hand." They did and Ruby dragged her off, towards the wall at the end of the alley. And Ruby scrambled up, her nails scraping against brick and her sneakers finding each of the footholds until she perched on top, seeming taller than she already did.

"Throw your bag over."

Anna pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder and took a deep breath before throwing with all her might. It bounced into the space next to Ruby before landing on the other side. Ruby dangled her arms over so that she was dangerously close to the edge.

"It's OK. Jump. I'll catch you."

This time, Anna did not hesitate. She close her eyes and leapt until her hands came into contact with the rough skin of the other girl's. Then she was rising as she was lifted through the air. Ruby sure was strong. Her chest was dragged along the surface until she was pretty sure that it was scratched all over and finally Ruby called to her.

"You have to get your leg up. Don't look down. The wall's not that high."

Voices came from behind her, shouts. The policemen were gaining on them.

"Come on."

Anna gritted her teeth as Ruby gently placed her palms down on the tough stone in a position that she should be able to hold on. And then she let go. Anna pulled and struggled against the loud voice shouting in her head that she was about to fall. Her feet fought against gravity until she had stretched her legs just enough that she lay face down on the wall with her red hair stretched out in front of her and brushed against her forehead. Her stomach stung and she realized it must have got cut in the climb.

"Dammit," muttered Ruby. The policemen were jumping at the wall, trying to get up and reach them. She pushed herself down to the ground, it was only eight or nine feet, and landed in a crouch position beside Anna's bag. She motioned for the other girl to follow.

Anna pushed herself up on shaking arms and at an attempt to copy Ruby, collapsed in a pile beside her.

"You OK?"

"I hurt my leg."

Ruby helped her up. "It's not broken. If it were, you'd be screaming in pain. Don't lie around all day. We're on the run, remember?"

For a moment, an image came into Anna's mind of Ruby sweeping her up in her arms and carrying her off into the distance, but instead, she steadied her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder so that they hopped along in an awkward, three-legged race style.

"I think we lost them," said Ruby as they came to rest on a shopping street. "Here, let's sit you down. There's a payphone over there. Happen to have any money on you?"

"I think so." Anna rummaged through her handbag, finally emerging triumphant with a cat shaped purse. She handed a few coins over to Ruby.

"How much you got in there?"

"Around a hundred credits. I have my card too."

"They can track you if you use your card. Oh well. I guess we'll have to spend wisely until we find a way to get some more." She went to the phone, dialling in Charlie's number. "Hi Charlie. Yeah it's Ruby. The girl from yesterday. Yeah, I-I think Anna and me could do with that, what were you saying? We could do with that chat right now. Any time that's good for you." There was a brief pause as Charlie spoke. "Sure. So, I guess we'll see you there." She hung up and looked over her shoulder at Anna. "Layer four. You're gonna have to stay close to me so we can both get through the barriers."

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

Forty five minutes later, they were sitting in Charlie and her mom's apartment in the M section of layer 4. And it was nice, for just one layer above Ruby. The apartment was relatively modern, not all marble and plastic like Anna had described her large home as being, more wood panelling in a coffee shop style. In fact, that was most likely what Mrs Bradbury (Charlie's mom) had been intending to design when she added in the framed black and white photos hanging over the small, also wooden table that overlooked the street. She had a counter too, and a coffee machine which Charlie had used straight away so Ruby now sipped at her 'double chocolate mocha with extra whipped cream' as Charlie had called it. And Mrs Bradbury was in bed so apparently, Charlie could invite people over without her ever knowing. She was meant to be working on designing a game for SNAP-pad but not a particularly fun one as she had said. Simply a game to teach small kids their alphabet. Anna sipped at a mint tea opposite her.

"So what, your dad never wants to speak to you again?" Charlie asked as Anna finished her story.

"In short, yes," Ruby replied for her.

"That's some serious crap," Charlie said after a few seconds. "I mean, I wish I could say something like 'I know how you feel' but I honestly can't. I came out to my mom and dad when I was fifteen. That was nearly three years ago and when my dad was still alive. My parents were cool with it I guess but mom's parents, not so much. They were all like 'oh sweetheart, what do you think turned you into a homosexual?' I'm sorry guys. I really don't know what to do. I could call Dorothy. She lives across the street. Has contacts in all areas."

Ruby nodded to her. "Go ahead."

Charlie went to their family phone which, for some reason, stood right next to the coffee machine. Ruby wondered how convenient that was when you could quite easily spill hot drinks on it.

Another five minutes and a knock came on the door which Charlie immediately rushed to answer. In the doorway stood a girl, slim and tall, far taller than Charlie with short brown hair down just past her chin. She wore a brown leather jacket, fake leather possibly as real leather was incredibly expensive.

"Hey Red," she said, addressing Charlie. Then she looked over at them. "Are these the girls you told me about, Char?"

"Yeah."

"What's up? I'm Dorothy." She sat herself down in the fourth seat. "You must be Ruby and you must be Anna."

"Want a drink, Dorothy?" Charlie asked loudly from behind the counter.

"Black coffee, please."

"So how did you two meet?" Ruby found herself asking.

"Now that's an interesting story. Here's your coffee." Charlie placed another mug in front of Dorothy. "I dropped out of high school at the end of my freshman year. I know, not very good. But I wanted a job and I got one at tech support for some big company. Boring stuff I know. Anyway, one day they caught me hacking into one of their systems. I thought I was fired for sure but some guy got interested in me. Said he was looking for 'bright young minds' to work for him. He said I needed training first. There's a college on layer 2, they're meant to be pretty good but you either need to pay or get a scholarship. They have ten scholarship places but only accept people over eighteen. There's a big test to get in. Anyway, I went and looked round, met Dorothy. She was taking the test to study languages. We hit it off straightaway. She's a year older than me so next year, she's taking a gap year, travelling for six months, studying for the other six with me and we're gonna take the test together. At the moment, they want to see some of my work so I have to design all these IT programs. I'm also fixing up things, too."

"Can we get back on topic?" Dorothy interrupted her. "We need to find some way of getting them away from here." She thought for a moment. "Wait. There's this guy. Helps people start new lives. For cash of course. He takes out your chip, gives you a new identity and you're all set. I hear he operates around here somewhere. Doesn't give a name, not a real name anyway. Something along the lines of Cr-Crow-Crowley. Yeah that's it. Crowley. He can help you."

"OK," said Ruby. "So where do we find this Crowley?"

"Hold on, I have an address somewhere. I'll be back in one minute." And Dorothy dashed out of the house, keeping her word and returning what seemed like a minute later, waving a small business card in the air. She handed it to Ruby.

**_Crowley & Co_ **

_Identity Changes and Chip Removals_

_19 Christopher Street, O-Layer 4, Manhattan, New York_

"Where did you get this?" asked Charlie with hock on her face.

"He does handouts and I kept it, you know, in case we found any fugitives."

"Well thanks. OK Anna, looks like we're off to find Crowley." Ruby looked at Anna's seat. It was empty. "Anna?" She twisted her head to see Anna standing by the window with sunlight glistening across her ginger hair. She went and stood beside her. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Anna twisted her finger around a rose in the flower pot they had resting there. "I'm just...worried. My family. My mom. My brother. He could be hurting them right now and I'm sitting here, sipping tea with you. What if I never see them again?"

"It's OK, Anna." She stroked at her hair, gently. I promise, you'll see your family again. Just you wait and see. I'm gonna get you back to them." She kissed her on the lips right then, in front of the other two girls. "I promise."


	8. VIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

> **Organ Prices**
> 
> **Kidney: 150,000-200,000 C**
> 
> **Liver: 120,000-140,000 C**
> 
> **Heart: 300,000-350,000 C**
> 
> **Small intestine: 1,850 C**
> 
> **Pair of eyeballs: Blue Eyes-2,000 C    Green Eyes-1,800 C      Hazel Eyes-1,650 C     Gray Eyes-1,500 C     Brown Eyes-1,400 C**
> 
> **Coronary artery: 1,568 C**
> 
> **Gallbladder: 1,219 C**
> 
> **Skull with teeth: 1,648 C**
> 
> **Scalp: 700 C**
> 
> **Spleen: 509 C**
> 
> **Stomach: 320 C**
> 
> **Hand and forearm: 293 C**
> 
> **Pint of blood: 314 C**
> 
> **Skin: 7 C per square inch**
> 
> -Official organ prices on the black market, May 2143

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

Anna checked the address again from the small card given to them by Dorothy.

Ruby nudged her. "You sure this is the place?"

It certainly wasn't what she had expected: a small Chinese takeaway joint, sandwiched between an estate agent and a candy store on a small street in West Manhattan. 'The Lucky Dragon' a paint peeling sign read over the entrance in large gold lettering, the translation in written below in Mandarin. Tacky, red curtains shielded the inside from public view and as Anna leaned in to take a closer look, she caught a flicker of movement. She backed away, slowly.

"Do you think that it was all fake?" she asked, still staring in front of her.

"I don't know. Dorothy seemed pretty sure." And then Ruby took a step forward and opened the door which hung a sign reading 'open'. A bell rang as she stepped into the entranceway and Anna fell into step behind her. A woman with black hair pulled in a bun and wearing an apron with about as little enthusiasm as you could get, moved in front of them.

"Table for two?" The inside was as messy and cheap looking as the outside, everything cramped into the tiny room which held no more than five tables. Because of the lack of light due to the curtains, lanterns had been hung from the ceiling as well as small candles set on a few table surfaces. And, a staircase ascended behind the counter.

"No." Ruby took charge again. "We're here to see_"

"Straight upstairs, turn left," said the woman.

"You didn't let me finish."

The woman kept her sour face and pushed the two of them in the direction of the staircase before turning back to her work which seemed to just be standing by the door and waiting for any new customers.

"Well she seemed friendly," Ruby said as she squeezed up the narrow staircase, followed closely by Anna.

They came to a second landing, as cramped as the downstairs floor. The walls were grimy and hung with vintage, black and white photos of women in short dresses. Well they could assume they were vintage as barely anyone used photos without importing videos into them. And the smell. Like rotting food, stinking up the entire floor.

A man came out of the door on the left that the woman downstairs had told them about. He was well dressed, in a smart, black suit with a light blue tie. He had a clean cut beard and short hair. He was short too, around the same height as Ruby. He carried the air and appearance of a wealthy business man which made Anna wonder just what he was doing living in a place like this.

"Hello darling," he said in an English accent, addressing Ruby first of course. He held out his hand and she shook it and then he did the same to Anna. "I'm Crowley, as you probably guessed, if you've come to the right place. Keep moving us around, bloody police!" He raised his voice for the last two words and then smiled sweetly before looking back at them. "What can I do for you?" he asked in a lighter tone.

Anna opened her mouth to reply and then shut it again, deciding to leave Ruby to do the talking. "Well, you see, we're kind of on the run," Ruby said. "It's a long story."

"Ah. Well, you've come to the right place. I help you change your identities, for a small fee of course. Tell me, what could two lovely ladies such a yourselves have done to turn you into fugitives?"

Ruby scowled at him. "As I said, it's a long story. We pay you to do what we want, no questions asked."

"Well come in then. Don't mind the smell. It goes away once you shut the door. The owners of the restaurant downstairs, they use up here to store their animal entrails.

Anna pulled a disgusted face and Ruby muttered "lovely," under her breath.

The inside of the apartment or flat or whatever it was was pretty similar to the outside with more if those vintage photographs hung on the dark brown, wooden wall. It was small with a living room/kitchen although why he needed a kitchen, Anna could not see as stacked across the counter were various takeaway boxes. He had a few computers on a desk in the living room half which were hooked up to what seemed to be security cameras. There was a tiled door at the side of the room, presumably leading to a bathroom, a door that would probably go to a bedroom and one more. Crowley went over to the counter.

"Can I get you girls anything to drink?"

"What do you have?" Ruby questioned him.

"Either of you drink Craig?"

"I don't drink," Anna replied and Ruby shook her head before asking for two glasses of water. They sipped at their glasses.

"Now, we should probably sort out the cash details. They'll need to be chip removal, insertion, face alteration, providing you with new IDs and finding you accommodation but I tell you what, for two such beautiful girls, I'll give you it for, hm, four hundred."

"Four hundred?" No way. Two hundred!"

"Oh I'm sorry. These things cost me money too, all that technology. Three fifty, no lower."

"Two fifty and that's my final offer," said Ruby.

Crowley sighed. "I'll go and get the paperwork then. He disappeared into the unknown room.

Anna glared at Ruby. "That's my money. Anyway, I only have a hundred in my purse."

"Yes, but how much do you have on you card?"

"Around six hundred credits," she said casually.

"Six hundred. Whoa! So basically, while people on layer five are struggling to survive, you're getting fifty credits a week."

"Not fifty a week. I save up. Are we really gonna do this now Ruby? Besides, they'll be able to track me through my card."

"Excuse me," said Crowley, appearing beside them. "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. I can guarantee you that I  _will_ be able to remove two hundred fifty credits from your card."

"And no one will be able to track us?"

"Promise," Crowley said, stroking Anna's hair and she flinched. "Alright girls. Now, all I need you to do is sign along the dotted line." He placed two contracts in front of them and one pen.

"Hold on a second. What does the small print say?" Ruby demanded, suspiciously.

"Oh the usual. I, insert name here, give my consent for the charming man in front of me to make alterations to my face while I am in a drug induced coma."

Anna suddenly went very pale. "Drug induced coma?"

"What, you want to be screaming as I cut at your face?"

Ruby sensed what was about to happen and took Anna's hand. "Don't worry," she whispered. "He's just trying to scare you. Either that or he's got something seriously wrong with him." She stood up. "You'd better not mess with her face. Or she'll sue you."

Crowley backed away from Ruby with fear in his eyes so that he crashed into the dining counter, then he took a deep breath. "So, who's going to go first?"

Ruby took a brave step forwards but Anna held her hand in front of her. "They're looking for me, remember? Not you. And even if they are, all they'll be looking for is a girl with blue hair and piercings, and, if they speak to your mom, a ruby tattoo."

"Actually, my mom doesn't know about my tattoo," Ruby admitted.

"Ooh, where is this tattoo that no one can see?" asked Crowley with a glint in his eye. Ruby held her middle finger up at him.

"I see where this is going. Fine, the blue didn't suit me much anyway. Have a bath in here Crowley? Oh and just so you know, my tattoo's on my shoulder. For when you remove it."

Crowley gestured towards the tiled door and Ruby went in. Then he beckoned to Anna, leading her to the mysterious door. She took a deep breath and followed. It was very dark but soon her eyes adjusted to the light. It was very small, a mirror on one wall and two of a sort of recliner chair in the middle, the type they may have in a doctor's surgery. She lay down on it and Crowley produced a needle from a packet, sterilized, presumably.

"Roll up your sleeve," he said and she obeyed him so that it came up over her MEDI-band. He tapped at her arm until vins became visible and gently held the needle before pushing it in. There was a sharp sting and she winced and then she felt blackness before her eyes. Slowly, she fell into a deep sleep.

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

Ruby ran her hands through her silky and damp hair. Blue dye washed onto her hands. So far, it had turned the whole bathtub blue and yet still, it still did not seem to have fully washed out. Her body was dirty from her infrequent washes, she scrubbed at her face with a sponge first, and then at her naked arms, legs and chest. Her hair fell around her in an arc, then clung to her face and she brushed it from her eyes. Brown. She hadn't seen that in ages.  It was more black reall due to the fact that it was wet and she brushed it from her eyes. She let out the water and went to stand over the mirror. Yes, she looked ordinary again, save for the piercings, the tattoo visible on her shoulder, her thin figure, OK so she still could not pass as an ordinary girl. She reached for her nose first and pulled the back from the small stud. From having been there for years without removal, it was stiff and ached as it came from the hole. Her ears went next and as she pulled out the fourth one from her right ear, she was done. She smiled at her own reflection and gathered herself up in a towel that Crowley had laid out, before opening the door to find Crowley there, staring at her.

"Crowley," she shrieked and pulled the towel up, over her breasts. She recovered quickly. "So Anna is_"

He held up a finger, silencing her. "Anna Julie Milton. Layer two. Good school, good results in class, classified medical files but I'm guessing pretty serious, judging by the meds circling her body. Can't remove the MEDI-band I'm afraid. It could and most likely would kill her. Luckily, there's no tracker on there. Why don't you tell me what a girl like that is doing on the run from her family. We could ask city wide news of course." He switched on the news then, on his tiny television set, possibly from even the 20th century, if you looked at how shaky the image was. Kevin Tran was announcing the four 'o' clock news, sitting at a typical newsreader desk. An image of Anna was displayed behind him, along with a view over the Empire State Building.

"Shit," Ruby muttered and Crowley looked over at her.

"Anna's family now have a message," said Kevin. It cut to an image of a man in a suit with a round face and barely any hair left apart from a few gray patches. The woman who sat next to him seemed younger with auburn hair in a neat bun and also dressed in a suit. The captions beneath them read Zachariah Milton and Naomi Milton.

"We feel so awful about Anna. We just wish she would come back home. We believed it as a kidnapping at first but no ransom call has been made yet.  Anna, if you're watching this, please know, we're coming to get you." Anna's dad pulled one final fake smile and then it cut back to Kevin. Ruby knew him of course from the tv set even older than Crowley's that they kept in the corner of the shelter dining hall. He had been reading the news for at least twenty years, he must have started as a teenager for he still looked great and not even into his forties.

"Witnesses describe Anna's kidnapper as a tall woman with blue hair and several piercings, suspected to be from layer five. If you have any information, please call 56F9JJ41. There's that number again. 56F9JJ41. And now to Brooklyn where a fifty year old candy store owner_"

"What a load of crap!" Ruby shouted and then caught Crowley looking at her. "Boy, news travels fast doesn't it?" He just stared at her. "Look," she said. "I'm not some psycho who kidnapped Anna for fun. Did it seem like she was scared of me there? I offered to let her go back to her family and she chose to come with me because_" She covered her mouth, realizing she had given away too much information. "Listen, you tell the cops any of this, I say I'm not a psycho but I could quite easily kill you."

"I'm not going to get scared of a girl more than half my age, especially now you look far less scary, alright darling."

"Let me see Anna."

"You will see her. You're about to have your surgery done too."

Ruby sighed deeply. "You have anything for me to wear?"

____________________

Ten minutes later and in a new set of clothes including a grey sweater and jeans, Ruby emerged into the little room behind the counter in Crowley's kitchen. Anna lay on a doctor's bed, looking so lifeless in her sleep with a needle attached into her arm, right above her MEDI-band. Her red hair was laid out behind her. She was like Sleeping Beauty of Snow White, waiting for their true love's kiss to wake them up, typical fairytale, the princess having to be rescued by the prince, the load of shit she hated. A little slit was visible on her right arm where her chip once would have been. It was an illuminated red.

"I inserted a new chip for her. Just need to stitch it up. I'll do the same for you. Lie down," he commanded her. She collapsed onto the second recliner chair. All the technology in here looked dodgy but she would just have to trust him. He had done a pretty good job on Anna anyway. He pressed a needle into the skin of her arm. She barely felt the pain, unlike Anna, but the experience was the same. She began to feel dizzy as black spots appeared before her eyes. Darkness enveloped her and her head fell back as she gave in to the drugs.

 


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (late) Easter. Sorry for incredibly late publishing date but I've been really busy with exams this week.

 

 

 

 

 

> **Surname (printed): _TALBOT_ First Name:  _ABIGAIL_ Middle Name(s): _ISOBEL_**
> 
> **DOB: _1_ _5th November 2133_**
> 
> **Address: _St Mary's Homeless Shelter, 8 Elizabeth Street, Layer 5, Manhattan, New York_**
> 
> **Money To Be Sent To: _Jacob and Rose Talbot (address above)_**
> 
> ** Appearance  **
> 
> **Hair: _Light Brown (natural) Pink (dyed)_   Eyes: Green**
> 
> **Ethnicity: White (Caucasian)                          Country of Origin: United Kingdom**
> 
> **Height: 5ft 7"                                                 Weight:99lbs**
> 
> **Name of Doctor: N/A**
> 
> **Signed: _Bela Talbot_**
> 
> -Application for warping, December 2150

*********

**Ruby**

*********

 

_"So you're telling me in sixteen years, you've never been up here?"_

_"Didn't know it was possible," Ruby called up as her feet searched for another bend in the drainpipe. Her hands scrambled at the wall for spaces where she could put her hands and she pulled herself over the edge of the building so that she was standing on the roof._

_"Well it's good we can come up here," replied Bela. "It has it's uses."_

_Ruby coughed. "Like what?" As far as she could tell, all this little old building, that had been abandoned for more than fifteen years, did was ruin the skyline of the bottom layer._

_"Well it...it shows the beautiful view."_

_Again, Ruby coughed. Yes, you could see the highlights of layer 5. The Manhattan harbor, the recycling center and the local night club, frequented by the few teenagers who were just lucky enough to not come from the homeless shelter._

_Bela dropped down to the floor, leaning against the chimney as she reached inside her backpack and took out a cigarette which she quickly proceeded to light, using just one hand._

_"Hey, pass one."_

_Bela tossed a second one in her direction and then the lighter. "You shouldn't be smoking those, you know. I can't believe I let you. They're bad for you."_

_"And they're not bad for you, Abigail?" Ruby used Bela's first name. Bela punched her._

_"No I mean, it's bad I got you into them." Bela had kept her strong English accent for the few years she had been here, and Ruby doubted she would ever lose it._

_"Oh don't worry sweetie. It was Nathan who got me into them, not you."_

_"Yes, well can you make me a promise?"_

_"Sure." She inhaled deeply and the rotten taste she had gotten so used to spread over her tongue._

_"If I ever have to go away, anywhere," she gripped her arm tightly and Ruby felt a sharp pain, most likely the other girl's nails. "You'll stop smoking."_

_Ruby dropped her smile and leaned forward, looking at her girlfriend with concern in her eyes. "Wait, you're going somewhere?"_

_"Just promise."_

_"Fine. I promise I will stop smoking if you ever have to go away," she droned. "Happy?" And then she plucked the cigarette out from between Bela's teeth and openly kissed her on her lips, painted dark pink. She brushed the equally pink hair off Bela's face with her left hand while still holding her lit cigarette between her middle and index fingers on the other hand. For a few moments, they kissed until a yell came from below._

_"Ruby, are you up there?"_

_"Shit," hissed Ruby as she pulled away from Bela. "It's Meg. Shut up."_

_"Mom's looking for you!"_

_"She's up here, Meg!" Bela called back._

_"Thanks a lot."_

_"What, your mom might be dying."_

_"I seriously doubt that."_

_Meg's head appeared over the side of the rooftop. She had scaled the building far faster than them, thanks to her small feet. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something here?"_

_"Hey, stop being so cheeky. What does mom want?"_

_"I don't know. She seems pretty pissed. You coming?"_

_Ruby sighed. "Fine." She turned back to Bela. "I'll be back in half an hour."_

**____________________**

Ruby sat up with her newly brown hair falling in her face. She was numb, her whole body, wrapped up in the oversized t-shirt Crowley had lent her, felt so weak and heavy. And then, a dull pain, mainly on her shoulder and then on her wrist. Looking down, the skin was lighter for one small line, where her old ID chip would have been and where her new one now bleeped through her skin, showing a tiny, red, flashing light. The needle had been removed from her arm, she could see now and she stared at her reflection in the mirror on the side wall. Still not used to it, she was younger, at least she looked it without rings through every facial feature. The skin on her shoulder that had once been alive with color was now smooth and tanned like the rest of her body. She had to admit, Crowley had done a pretty good job. And then there was Anna, lying right beside her, just as wide awake. And Crowley hadn't altered her face in any way. She was relieved, sort of. It would have been hard, recognizing her Anna with a new face, even knowing that it was the same girl underneath. But now she could be recognized.

"Ruby," Anna gasped. "You look beautiful."

And then Crowley appeared behind them again. "Cash is all sorted out. I took it from your card, darling. Two fifty, give or take a few."

Ruby scowled at him. "But what happened? People will recognize her now. We won't survive five minutes."

"Did I forget to mention. It would be too dangerous to do anything worse than removing her chip. If I were to make a mistake, not that I make mistakes, I could end up cutting off the flow of meds pumping through her system and that would be a disaster."

"So you made her feel sick for no reason?"

"At the time, I didn't have her medical history. Still don't by the way. Very secure hospital database. But don't worry. Time for plan B." He went to a cupboard at the back of the room, completely unnoticed by the two girls up until now. And then he began to fold objects over his arm. "Here you are, girls." A bundle of clothes first. A gray sweater with a bird on. Not Ruby's taste at all. But it would have to do. "Now, your new identities. Amber and Rita Coleman. You're sisters. You moved here after the recent deaths of your parents, Peter and Andrea and  _Rita_ is nineteen and old enough to be your guardian.

"Wow, sounds like the start of some crappy teen novel." Ruby hopped down from the bed. "Have you considered the fact that Anna looks nothing like me?"

"Yes. And she will look like you."

At that moment, Anna started unfolding her clothes. A ton of gray sweaters just like Ruby's and then, what looked like a ball of brown hair, stuffed in the middle.

"Because that's plan B. You're going to have to wear that outdoors, I'm afraid. Either that or be recognized. Which actually leads me to my next question. Why_"

"I already said," Ruby remarked. "You don't ask questions. I'm not going to ask you anything like why the Hell do you have a storage of wigs. Like seriously, did you use to work for the CIA or something?" Then she stopped herself. "Sorry. No questions being asked."

"You two had better go and get ready. You'll be glad to know that I have found accommodations for you. It will be free for  _orphans_ such as yourselves but only for six months. Then you will have to pay rent. I would hope that, by then, your _sister_ would have found herself a job."

"Alright, stop that. Stop with the emphasis on sister and orphans. If you keep reminding us what we're not, it's gonna be harder to pull of the act, isn't it?"

He stared at her, then shrugged. "The bathroom's free for you to use."

Not that there would be any reason anyone else would be using it. Ruby caught hold of Anna's shirt and led her out.

"Do you think we can trust him?" Anna asked once they were out of Crowley's earshot.

"What, you think he's gonna rat us out? I don't know, he's not exactly Mr Trustworthy and I'm pretty sure money's involved. But that would stop him getting more money from this business of his, whatever it is  he does. I mean, you heard him, four hundred. If that's what it is for two girls who clearly don't have more than a thousand credits between them, imagine for some celebrity who's just tired of their lifestyle. I don't know what kind of guests he gets. I guess we're just gonna have to trust him." Ruby gestured to the bathroom door. "You want to go first, or should I?"

"I don't mind. What do you want to do?"

"No, see it doesn't work like that. I ask you a question, you answer. Doing that, trying to be nice, it just wastes time. Do you want to go first or should I go first?"

"Fine. I'll go first." As she went in, she pulled off her cross necklace, the first change of her transformation, and dropped it by Ruby's feet. Once the door had been slammed, Ruby picked it up and tucked it into her pocket. It was important they left nothing behind. She hated the idea of Anna's parents, what they must be like to have done this to her. After coming out, most families would have a meaningful conversation with their children, eventually accepting it with the whole 'it's who you are' thing. In fact, she had not heard of any worse case, what with the world they lived in now. Gay marriage was legal in every community, she knew there were people who objected to it but this took it to a completely new level. The Miltons should pay for this. Every second that edged by, Ruby felt an urge to pick up Crowley's phone (also vintage) and ring up the shelter, tell her mother she was OK. Meg would have to be the one in charge of the family now, she was too young for all that weight on her shoulders. They would be desperately wondering where she was by now. It was late, the sky was dark outside. She had no idea how long the couple of them had been under. And then Anna emerged. The wig made a difference, a large difference with her striking red hair hidden beneath it. It did not suit her well but did look natural. As long as no one suspected anything.

"Your turn," Anna said.

*********

 

 **Anna** **  
**

*********

 

"So, this is it, huh?" Anna looked up at the gray building, which housed a block of flats on the busy mainstreet. Crowley really could not have picked a more inconvenient place, a few streets down from Times square and directly below the Empire State Building. And so alive. At eleven in the evening, the bars were still full, you could see the bustling figures behind the window. For a girl like her, this was no place to be. It was layer 3 so she should just feel safe enough, she reminded herself that this was where average people lived. Ruby seemed shocked by it. Of course she was, compared to having a tiny room as the only homee you ever knew, this was like living as a queen. They had been given the key, they had everything they needed. Ruby took the lead, taking them into an entry room. By now, everything had filed out of there, off to various parties, restaurants or simply to bed. Everything seemed to have a modern enough design, and at the end of the hallway, past a few chairs for the case if someone would want to hang around here all day, a glass elevator and a stairwell. It seemed similar to the hotel she had stayed in a few years ago with her mom, down in Florida although there was no one to check in with, no dinner room or cafe. It was a home. Permanently.

Ruby already had the key, given to her by Crowley. Thank God they would never have to see him again. According to the information he had given them, beds and various furniture would be in the room, up until they had the money to pay for it themselves. Anna did not know Crowley had convinced the owners of this place to let them do that.

Ruby made straight for the elevator. The truth was, they were too tired to climb the many levels of stairs as they already knew they were one floor from the top. It certainly wasn't perfect but Anna guessed that it was probably one of the only places they would likely be able to afford once they reached the deadline. The two girls stood side by side. The rose slowly, approaching new floors and then gliding up past them. A gap in the wall revealed a sliver of the night sky, still shielded by the skyscrapers on the other end of the island. Their shoulders almost rubbed against each other, they held an awkward silence as they rose. 1, 2, 3. Then, Ruby caught her eye. It was a mischievous glance. And then they kissed again. They had a few seconds before they arrived on their floor and in those seconds, Anna felt so free. She closed her eyes as Ruby's hands brushed up her forehead, under the brown wig and knocking it askew, and finally reaching to curl her fingers through her fine, red and natural hair. The elevator doors pulled open with a creak. Anna straightened the wig as she pulled apart from Ruby, untangling herself from the other girl's grasp and checking to make sure that the coast was clear. She peered into another corridor. Everything was silent. She counted ten different apartments just in their hallway. That meant nine families either asleep or out, not that she had any reason to count. Ruby opened the door to theirs. Room 58. And then she led the way in. Anna took back what she had said about it being like a hotel. It was more like her dorm room at school, the one she shared with Jo and two other girls who preferred to stay out of the way of those weirdos. There were two beds, sitting equal distance apart, like mirror images of each other, save for the fact that one had a door on the side or a doorway as it seemed to be with nothing keeping the two rooms apart but an empty space. The walls were a sort of faded pink, more like gray really, certainly not five star but who was she to complain? It was smaller than Crowley's apartment had been, there was a kitchen/living room/dining room with two sets of chairs squashed around a tiny table that one might find in a lunch cafe. It had a sofa with room for just two, in a shade of faded red to match the walls and a large television screen hung from one of them. It had a floor to ceiling window, three of them next to each other in fact like most homes had and a cooking surface and refrigerator. And a network screen on the small table. Without saying a single word, Ruby ran straight for it.

"What's going on?"

"Shh, I need to check something. Give me a second." The keypad appeared on screen and Ruby typed, the clicking sound the only noise between them. Anna squinted and saw that she had typed 'Anna Milton' in the search bar. And then a page of options came up, some just newsletters from her school with such announcements as 'Joanna Beth Harvelle and Anna Milton's bake sale raised ninety-six credits' and 'in third place in the sophomore photography competition was Anna Milton'. But among those, news reports.

"What the_"

"Shit. Guess the story hasn't died down."

Anna turned to Ruby. "You knew about this?"

"Thanks to that Crowley. Don't worry. We'll be OK so long as_"

"So long as what?"

"Well I don't know." She clicked on one video clip, another message of her parents pleading for her to come home. "Your dad's quite the actor. He's the one who gave you..." She gestured around the head area.

"Is my brother in any of those videos?"

"No brothers. No mentions of him in the articles either."

"Ruby, I need to see that he's OK. I can't let Cas get hurt. He's too young."

"Hey I need to check on my family too. But for now, it's too dangerous. Trust me, I know about these things. You're gonna have to leave it for a while. Wait for the story to die down. Wait until people are starting to forget your adorable face. It's not like he's gonna kill him, right? Surely he can't be that bad."

"Thanks, you've made me feel so much better," said Anna in the most sarcastic tone of voice she could use. "With that on mind, I think I'm going to try to get some sleep."

"You don't want to get something to eat? I'm fucking starving."

"In case you haven't noticed, we don't have any food. You're going to have to wait until morning. It's not like you've never gone a few hours without food before."

"True. Guess my body adjusted to the idea that you were gonna be feeding me with your pockets stuffed with cash. Well then, I'm gonna try and sleep too although I'm pretty sure I'm well rested enough after that whole thing with Crowley." She pulled her sweater over her head, so that her shirt lifted the slightest amount, and then dumped it on the floor before kicking off her shoes.

"Good night, sleep tight, et cetera." And then she stumbled over to her chosen bed (the one on the right) and pulled the duvet right up over her head so that only a small clump of brown hair was showing. Anna sighed and then smiled to herself as Ruby's steady breathing became replaced by light snores. And then she removed the wig and tossed it to the ground, collapsing into the other bed, wriggling herself into the right position. And as she slept, she dreamed of whatever pain her brother must be going through for her.


	10. X

 

 

 

 

 

> **Dear Sir/Madame,**
> 
> **The company is writing to inform you that all workers are being asked to vacate their positions as new technology must be brought in. Although you all work incredibly hard, these machines will be more efficient. I am truly sorry for this news but you will need to have packed all your things away from the office by this Saturday 25th March. Before you leave, you will be given a bonus of 200C, each.**
> 
> **We are willing to write references if you wish to apply for another job and we find you suitable enough. Please enquire to Mr Thomas Hale's office in the next week. We thank you and once again apologize.**
> 
> **Yours sincerely,**
> 
> **Allison Harold, Chairwoman of ALD**
> 
> -Letter addressed to the workers at ALD, New York, 8th December 2133

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

She sat up in the bed, shaking the hair from her eyes. And then she dropped down again. For a few moments, she just lay there, processing the events of the day before. This really was happening. She was already living with Ruby after two weeks. Like Romeo and Juliet except for them, hadn't it only been five days? She rolled to her side, staring at Ruby's sleeping form opposite her. The light was already fading in through the windows of the next room and shining to them. One of the cons of having no doors to separate the kitchen from the bedroom. She felt numb. Maybe the drugs Crowley had used had not cleared properly from her body. Maybe it was an after effect. A sting spread through her left wrist and she instinctively reached out, feeling the cold metal of her MEDI-band. She would have a lot to get used to but that was one thing that would stay the same.

Ruby stretched herself out, making loud, roaring yawns, startling Anna, slightly.

"Whaaaaaat tiiiiiiimmme iiiiis iiiit?" she gasped.

"I don't know. Give me a second." She searched around in her bag, eventually producing a small clock. "Quarter to ten."

"Why the Hell do you have that in there?"

"I can't wear a watch. It would get in the way of," she pointed at the silver band on her arm. "In case I lose my smartphone. Which I sort of have."

"Whatever. You know, I'm still hungry."

"And you want me to come out and get food with you. I suppose it will be a good opportunity to gt to know the area." Anna found where she had abandoned the brown wig on the floor. She placed it on her head and twisted it into position so that it looked pretty much as natural as she could get. She pulled on her jacket while Ruby got ready and then began to leave. It was hard to believe that just a day ago, she had been facing this for the first time. It seemed like a lifetime before that she had seen her parents' face as Cas leapt at her father.

The halls were busier than they had been the night before. A small boy sat outside the room facing theirs with a toy car in his hand which he moved forwards and backwards along the floor. Anna quickened her step but Ruby caught hold of her shirt.

"Might as well be friendly if we're gonna fit in," she hissed. She turned her attention to the boy. "Hey little guy. We just moved in here."

He remained focused on his toy.

"I'm Ru...Rita and this is my sister, _Amber."_ She nudged Anna who offered a weak smile. The boy just stared blankly. "We came last night. What's your name?"

"Aaron!" called a woman's voice from inside the apartment and then the speaker poked her head around the door. She was probably in her thirties, dark skin like the boy and hair cut short. "Oh new neighbours," she said, enthusiastically. "I'm Angela. This is my son, Aaron. He doesn't talk much."

Anna felt a pain in her heart. Aaron was like a younger version of Cas, she realized.

"I'm Rita and this is my sister, Amber," Ruby said, shaking the woman's hand.

"Rita, we have to leave. We have to get that shopping done."

"Sorry I didn't know about you arriving," Angela continued. "I'll bring over some food later."

"That's nice of you," said Ruby. "And sorry about her, she's so keen to do her shopping." She waved goodbye as they went down the hall, back to the elevator, which, to their advantage, was empty.

"What was that, Ruby?"

"What was what?"

"I thought you said we had to, you know, not get noticed."

"Relax, they're looking for an innocent redhead and a psychopathic punk. We're pretty much the opposite. And you being all socially awkward, they're bound to notice that, aren't they? Look, we just play at happy families. We're sisters, and not girlfriends. We're average citizens now."

They stepped out onto the pavements and began to fall into line behind all those, busy with their daily routine or whatever they did on their vacations. Advertisements lit up billboards, too bright along with the Summer sun reflecting off the skyscrapers. Department stores, fast food stores, takeaway joints far more fancy than the one where Crowley had made his home. Both were in awe. Finally, after about five minutes, they found a supermarket.

"Milk, check," Anna said, placing a carton in the basket, making sure it did not burst. "Cheese, bread, cereal." And then she went to the energy food aisle, all the dehydrated food packets looming over her.

"I have to say, I thought we'd be living like queens now but with all this on you, it just takes the fun away."

"It's safer than stealing."

"Since when have I stolen anything?"

"You have a criminal record, remember, you told me?"

"Fine. Yes, I enjoy stealing."

"Inside voice, Ruby. There are people here."

 

"This brings back memories. When I lived in California and we were at least a bit richer than now, I used to do all the groceries with mom. You see, unlike you, we couldn't get them hand delivered to the door. Still, one of the highlights of the week. I used to have a game, see how much candy I could sneak into the basket without mom noticing. Her and my...dad never told me about the money problems we had. They thought it would worry me. I found out the day he left. It was so many years ago but you just don't forget something like that. She was sad but she wasn't crying. She was sitting at our table, drawing clothing designs, trying to fill in job applications. She was heavily pregnant with Tom and she looked so weak. She couldn't feed herself with all that going to him and she was giving up meals for us. I hadn't noticed until then, I didn't even know dad was gone. What a crappy daughter I turned out to be."

"Look Ruby."

"Yeah I know. Mom's gone over it with me so many fucking times. It wasn't my fault, I was too small to understand. But someone has to take the blame."

"Alastair was older than you, wasn't he?"

"Anna, I tore the family apart. Mom needed two kids, that was all she could afford to pay for. And dad wanted a boy."

"So you're saying it's your fault for being born?"

"It's stupid and incredibly cliche but it's what I think. So anyway, I saw she was sad and I asked her what was wrong. She told me what to worry. It wasn't my business. She's was so goddamn strong. Why would anyone leave her? That dick he... She told me the situation and even though I didn't really understand, I hugged her. I remember that so well. Look, I don't like having these lame, emotional discussions with you. It's not like I want you to know everything about me. I've given away more than an actor would need to play a role of some bigger celebrity in an autobiography movie. Not that I've seen any of those in a while. We do what we came here to do. We shop."

**____________________**

"Well, I guess I was wrong. You've sure got it good, snob." Ruby put more of her fat spread onto her bread, at least three times more than you would usually need and licked it, her teeth tore at it. She really was hungry. Anna took a spoonful of 'energy cereal'. Everything had to be energy, she doubted there was even anything that would give you any more energy in them. Just more and more additives but then, you could hardly find anything else. For yoghurts and milk, low fat, extra high protein options, nothing kids could really have whilst growing up. She watched each small piece of wheat slide off her spoon until just the milk was left which she sipped at. It tasted like vomit. She was not hungry. All she could think about was her poor brother. she needed to know how he was. As Ruby had toasted all the bread and set out plates, she had searched the network for the few minutes it took as her girlfriend tried not to set the house on fire and nothing, absolutely nothing in any of the Anna Milton stories, about a Castiel.

"You know what sounds good for dinner: fries. I could try a chocolate cake too. Your favorite."

Anna found the way Ruby's mood changed so quickly, odd. It was like she was trying to forget what had taken place in the supermarket. Something inside Ruby wanted to spill all of those secrets, she wanted to let them all out but once she did, she only became more defensive.

"Ruby, Angela already left a pie."

"Well I don't want pie. Reminds me too much of Dean Winchester. Oh the perks of being fugitives. No more douchebags. You can eat it if you want. You're not eating much."

"I'm fine just..." she thought for a moment for an excuse. She knew that Ruby did not want her thinking about her family. "Worried that I'll get food poisoning from that bread. It looks a little burnt, doesn't it?" Score one to her.

Ruby faked throwing her second lump of bread at her. "Well I'm going to go and try to find myself a job, you too if they employ minors."

"You're a minor too."

"Not according to my ID chip. I'll see you later. Maybe search on the network for some new clothes and furniture for us. Later." Anna watched the door as it close behind Ruby. Then she waited around thirty seconds, enough time to ensure she was gone, provided she did not talk to any more neighbours. Then, she quickly typed in her name on the search engine again. Another new story. She pulled it open with her finger.

_Anna Milton, a 16 year old girl who disappeared in the early hours of yesterday morning, has still not been found, nor have any ransom calls been made to her house. However, security cameras caught images of a girl with red hair whose face was not caught, along with another person wearing a hood, near the downtown area of layer 4. "We just don't understand who could have taken her," says father, Zachariah Milton. "We can't understand why__

Anna shut it down, feeling the need to throw up. It was the same 'crap' as Ruby had said. All her suspicions confirmed. He would never give away the true story, that his daughter had run away. Society could not know. A lesbian daughter. Like that could destroy his career. To be honest, she really did not know what they would do. She breathed calmly for a while, in and out, in and out. Just do what Ruby says. Find furniture, clothing. Take your mind off the topic. You're living a happy life with Ruby, girl of your dreams. There's no way anyone will find you. Everything is fine. But then, that voice returned.

_They're going to find you. Your dad's going to be ashamed of you. You'll never see Ruby again._

It was Hester. Not really Hester. Hester was going to some public high school in Mississippi. She had been expelled. It was just her imagination. She opened up the website of a popular and relatively cheap, clothing store. Not her taste but it was dark so maybe Ruby would like it. And as she scrolled through the t-shirts, the spray ons and the sneakers, she did everything she could to tear her eyes away from the telephone.

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

 

 Three hours spent out searching. She had gone to the office first. The one where they find jobs suitable for you. Fuck Crowley for not making 'Rita Coleman' more skilled. After the particularly rude lady at the desk had scanned her ID chip and typed slowly into her computer, she had declared with a smug face that the only jobs available to someone with her 'talents' would be as a barmaid or a receptionist. And still she had tried. In the window, there had been an advertisement for a broadcasting station position. She had gone anyway, though it was pop music, not the type she liked. An internship. An unpaid internship and when she asked what the task included, they told her bringing coffee to the hosts and stacking CDs. She had tried waitresses at a few cafes but since all the ones that actually needed waitresses were all so posh, they all wanted workers with plenty of experience. She had gone to the doctor's surgery but they already had a woman who had got there before her. And then finally, she had gone to the bar, walked through the filth of the place. In all the years her mother had described what working in a bar was like, she could never have dreamt it would be that awful. Even for the middle of the day, men were playing pool and drinking beer, pissing in the corner and trying to look down her shirt. As she approached the owner, he had said "of course you can work here. You can start first thing tomorrow. In fact, why not stay the night in my bedroom. It's right upstairs so you'll be able to get here first thing tomorrow." Then, him and his friends had cackled and high fived each other as she sneaked her way out. She had bought a bracelet on her way out of there, it was studded and pretty enough. Just her style. After all, there was no Rita Coleman so why not just base her on herself.

So, that day had been a failure. She climbed the stairs instead of taking the elevator. New York just wasn't the right place for a 'nineteen' year old girl and especially one with seemingly the worst education in the universe. She just did not know how she would break the news to Anna or Amber as she was supposed to call her now. As she reached the top of the stairwell, Aaron ran past her, followed by an older girl and then a walking Angela.

"Oh hello, Rita. Apologies for them again. That was my daughter, Riley. And you already know Aaron. So where have you been? And where's your sister?"

Great. Maybe Anna was right. Now she had to deal with the world's most annoying neighbour. "Amber's inside. I've been trying to find a job but the only place up for hiring is full of immature douchebags," she whispered, peering round to make sure the kids were not listening.

"That's such a shame. You seem like a wonderful girl. I'd offer to let you come over for a cup of tea but we're going out."

"Ang, who's this?" A man came and stood beside her. He put folded his arm over Angela's shoulder.

"Derek. This is Rita. Our new neighbour. This is my boyfriend, Derek. Rita's struggling to find a job at the moment."

"I could take her into the office. The boss is looking for a new secretary."

"Oh no you really don't have to do that."

"It's fine. It won't be that hard if that's what you're worried about." He grinned at her and she grinned back, inside hating him for that one comment.

She left them, briskly, thanking Derek for helping, and opened the apartment with her own key. Anna was still searching the network with her wig tossed to the ground.

"No luck although Angela's  _friendly_ boyfriend has agreed to take me to his office tomorrow. What about you?"

"Ruby, I have to call them. I have to check if Cas is OK."

"Anna, we've been over this. You can't. You'll just have to wait a while. Just stay calm."

"No. I can't take it. It's too much."

"You're like a girl after a one night stand." She began to imitate her. "He still hasn't called me. Should I call him? But then I'll seem desperate."

"Knock it off. I have to do this. Don't tell me you're not worried about your mom. And Meg. And Tom." And then she grabbed the phone off the hook and dialled. Ruby grappled with her but Anna held it up in the air and then to her ear. Ruby folded her arms as she watched. Anna waited for a few seconds and then fear crossed her eyes.

"This is...Lucy," she said, putting on a higher voice. "Can I speak to Cas, please?" And then she listened for a moment before muttering "OK, bye," and then hanging up.

"Who was_"

"My dad." Tears sprung in Anna's eyes. "He says, Cas is busy. He's going to busy for a while. What if he_"

"Stop worrying. Maybe he's grounded or something."

Anna wiped her eye and held out the phone to Ruby. "Go ahead, call the shelter. I had my chance."

Ruby stared at her for a while, not sure whether to cooperate or not and then took it. She dialled too. She knew the number by heart. It rang, twice, and then someone picked up.

"Hello, this is St Mary's homeless shelter." She knew that voice.

"What's up, Moose?"

"Ruby? You-you're mom's worried about you. Where_" There was the sound of the phone being shaking and then Dean's voice.

"Ruby, where are you?"

"No way I'm telling you, asshat. Give it back to Sam."

"Come on Ruby, we can help you. You may be an annoying bitch but_"

"I said hand back to Sam."

"No, I'm the oldest. I could get someone to track this call, you know."

"Oh really. Who do you know with those skills?"

"Bobby."

"Bobby. Of course." Bobby was an old drunk who lived at the shelter, good friends with the Winchester family and pretty much the smartest person she knew. "Fine. I'm with Anna and that's all you're getting."

"Anna? That hot redheaded chick? Your girlfriend?"

"Yes. My girlfriend. Can I speak to Meg please."

"Wait just_"

"Meg. Now."

"Fine." He sounded annoyed and she heard a grumble, shuffling of the phone and then him saying "it's for you. Your sister." Then Meg's loud voice spoke up.

"Ruby? Is that you?"

"Yes Meg, it's me. What_"

"Oh thank God. Mom's been worried sick about you. I told her that you'd be fine, you can look after yourself and all but these been a ton of cops here in our faces and_"

"Wait. Wait. Slow down. Cops, there? Asking you what?"

"If I know where you are and other crap. I told them no but of course, they don't believe me and they're following me everywhere. So where are you?"

"I would tell you but, oh shit. No I can't. Anna got kicked out of her house."

There was silence at the other end and then "Oh."

"Oh? That's all you've got? Look, I told Dean and I'm telling you. I'm with Anna. I'm fine. I can't tell you where and you can't come and visit me."

"I_"

"No. Don't even look for us. They'll follow you, Meg. They could be listening on our calls. I'll figure something out. And I'll find a way of getting a message to you. But for now, there's two things I need you to do. You need to tell mom I'm OK. Assure her everything's alright."

"OK. And the second thing?"

"I'm not gonna try and get you into trouble. But I need you to find a way of getting to layer 2. To Anna's house. You can do this. And find out about Castiel Milton. Find out if he's OK. You're his age so it should be fine. You could pretend to be one of his friends"

"Sure. No door stronger enough to keep Meg Masters out."

"I have to go now. I love you." She imitated Anna as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. And they were genuine tears. Real. She hung up.

"What's happened?" Anna asked

"The cops. They're all over at the shelter. And Dean knows I'm with you."

"You think we can trust him?"

"We can trust Sam but Dean hates me. He needs money, he loves money. He's more of a thief than both me and Be...I mean, he's a good guy really."

"OK. Did you get to talk to Meg?"

"Uh huh." She nodded. "She knows the layer I'm on and that I'm with you and that's it. But we can bet that she'll come looking for us. And it's almost certain that they'll follow her." She sat down on the bed beside Anna. "Look, we have important things to focus on. I'm gonna get a job, get us a life until our livers give out. I care about you. Why else would someone leave behind their life, no matter how shitty? I want us to have a future because, well, we're going to be together for a while. If we break up then both of us are done which is just why we have to stay together. I'm going to go to Derek's office even though he's a total douche, I'm going to do paperwork at a desk and in suit and bring him his coffee and doughnuts and whatever I'm meant to do. And one day, we can go back. And that's it."

"I could see Charlie and Dorothy in the morning. It won't be that suspicious will it and they'll want to check on me."

"Should be OK." She dropped her head back onto the pillow. "So what now?"

Anna grinned. "We make fries and chocolate cake. And I bought some out of the packet chicken. It's our favorite."

"And the pie?"

"Throw it out. Or refrigerate it. As long as you tell Angela you like it."

"Hey, does she seem a bit enthusiastic to you?"

"I wouldn't know. She could just be friendly." She got out a mixing bowl.

"No one is just friendly. I don't know what to think but it feels like everyone is a spy. I have such mixed feelings about this place. But we'll make this right. No spies can catch us out." She kissed Anna on the forehead who smiled up at her and then laughed. "Right, on your way back from Charlie's, you're buying mouthwash.

 


	11. XI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> ** On Sale Now **
> 
> **Tired of having to spend hours of your weekend doing housework? Thanks to latest technology, we now make special home robots. Perfect for cleaning, cooking and sorting through those piles of paperwork. Come to our Boxing Day sale, up to 50% off all robots from prices of 800C **at ** **Waters stores all over the country. Plus, be sure to check out our new competition where you could win any five of our robots.********
> 
> -Advertisement in newspapers for house robots, December 21st 2132

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

So first day at her new job. If she got it. Which she did not have a high chance of with only the one outfit Crowley had provided for them. Those awful gray sweaters. The two of them really had better find something better soon. She met with Derek outside the apartment at exactly 8.30 am. She had left Anna still asleep who planned on visiting Charlie and Dorothy later that day. She did her hair as best as she could, straightened her sweater and washed her face. She knew she looked terrible but the man did not comment. He smiled what she hoped was a friendly greeting and then lead her outside. And they took a magnatram, one of the vehicles sliding along the streets on magnetic rails with the entire route planned out so of course, no driver was needed. Many of them blocked the main street but no one seemed to be in a panic about being late to their work places. They probably had this everyday, maybe this was early for them.

A woman sitting opposite Ruby, looked her straight in the eye. Her mouth twitched up at the corner as she took a bit of her fruit roll. She was about to get up, ask her what her problem was like she would normally have done instead of just ignoring it, but Derek came over and alerted her that it was the next stop. Things seemed to go slowly as she climbed the stairs to the office, watching people opening large screens in their little cubicles or sitting around tables and sliding their fingers over holographic maps of the city. She realized she had not even asked what the people here did, just what type of office this was. Architecture, she decided. Or possibly one of those places that worked on the environment and just how green New York was. She laughed out loud at that thought, then disguised it as a cough, due to some curious looks from other workers. Right, like anyone on this layer even knew about what was going on below them. She thought back to the harbor, to Coney Island and the market place, all that abandoned for those unlucky ones. She had heard what they had said. There were only a few of them, no real threat. But she knew, half the city was made up of the homeless. They really needed to check their statistics again.

Derek knocked on the door to an office with a sign on the door that appropriately read 'BOSS' and then below that 'Mrs E. Baurese. Oh so this boss she was going to be working for was a woman. Inside, she felt herself feeling almost better until she assured herself that this woman could be worse than Derek himself.

A voice called from inside  "Come in." And he did. All the windows in the office were shuttered so barely any light could come in and quite right with how hot it was that day. A woman sat hunched by a screen. Her face was not visible but her hair was tied up in a small brown bun. She twisted her head around along with her chair. She was quite young, no older than Ruby's own mom. Strange but deep inside her, she had assumed that the title of boss only came with age.

"I've seen you here before," she stated calmly, looking at Derek. "You are...?"

"Derek Erickson. This is Rita. I thought she would be just perfect for the secretary job."

"Oh." The boss or Mrs Baurese, whatever she preferred workers to call her, held out her hand. Ruby shook it firmly.

"Could we have a moment alone please?"

Derek left, shutting the door behind him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, once he was gone.

"What do you mean?" Ruby tried to keep a straight face.

"Shouldn't you be in school, Rita or would you prefer I called you by Miss...?"

Ruby paused as she tried to remember the name given to her. "Coleman and you can call me Rita." She would have to be polite after all if she wanted work here. Already she could tell that the boss liked to get people to finish sentences for her. She surveyed the office. It all looked normal enough, stacks of paper, books, pads and pencils but there was something missing. A sense that this place belonged to someone, at least a human being. The walls had no photos of her and family or posters of her favorite movie stars or paintings or calendars or postcards. Nothing. She pulled her eyes away from the desk and instead stared straight at Mrs Baurese.

"Yes well, you're young, eighteen or nineteen. Being a secretary, it should be as a last resort. You could go to college."

"Don't have enough money."

"There's plenty of scholarships. You could go back to school even and find a job you actually want to do."

"I'm sorry," said Ruby. "But I thought you needed a secretary."

"There are plenty of older women and men out there looking for the same job. You're not the only one. Do you know what we do here?"

Ruby looked at her. "I'm guessing you're not interior designers." She smirked and clearly moved her eyes to the back, gray wall.

"Yes. You guessed right. But we do work with interior designers and exterior designers for that matter. We  _help_  make the country a better place, we invest in other companies to do just that. I can tell a lot by looking at you, Rita. You want people here to think you're some dumb secretary. You lived in one of the lower layers once. You must hate us. You think we don't know about you, we don't care. We do, at least I do. But the others, they're listening to the media. They think the further they stay away from you, the better. Making it look like those riots were your fault, their 'roughies' fault."

Ruby opened her mouth but Mrs Baurese continued.

"You want to have this job, I'll let you take it. Maybe it can help you if you ever do want to make sure nobody else has to live through what you did. But I'm warning you, these are the wrong people to work with."

Ruby took a few moments to absorb what was being said. It was true, she did want to help and get her mother, Meg and Tom out of that shelter, maybe Sam and even Dean. She wanted to protect them from the same fate as Al, whatever had happened to him. And this seemed like the safest option, to protect Anna, too.

"Thank you. But I think I'll take my chances. When do I start?"

The older woman sighed and shook her head. "Not now. It won't be until the new working year." She saw Ruby's sad expression and added "Don't worry. I'll give you a small pay for now to keep you going. You'll have to fill out this contract, it's about the other work you have had, your experience and how much you'll get paid but you won't have to worry. And remember what I told you."

**____________________**

Ruby hurried down the streets and crossed a road, tracing her steps backwards from what she remembered on the journey there. She held her hand in front of the traffic, as if it would make any difference. She turned herself down an alleyway and fiddled with her hair as she tried to secure it back into a half ponytail.

"Ruby?" She heard a voice over her shoulder. It was a man's voice. She clenched her fists and quickened her pace. "Ruby, is that you?" It was a familiar voice too. And closer. She twisted her head around. A tall, skinny silhouette came from around the corner behind her. "It is you, isn't it?" And then she caught his face. Sandy blonde hair, large hands. Connor Ashby-Gray.

"Oh shit," she whispered under her breath and she began to run.

"Ruby! Come back here!"

As he caught up to her, she shouted back at him. "I don't know who you are!"

"Ruby, don't ignore me. You think I don't recognize you without the hair?" He reached out with one enormous hand, catching the edge of her sweater. Oh what she would give to kick him right now or at least spray him in the eye. Another thing to add to their shopping list. So she ran. He ran too but she was faster, even in her worn out shoes. She turned another corner with no idea where she was going. It was a dead end. A tall gate stood over her. She did the one thing she could. She rolled onto the ground, not bothering to clutch her shoulders at the pain of hitting the rough tarmac. She ducked into the tiny gap and vanished to the other side. Connor attempted to do the same but he was too big and got stuck in the process. Ruby backed away as quickly as possible.

"Bitch!" Connor shouted but she ignored him. She was enclosed in a small back garden. Glass sheltered each sprout and flower rising from the ground. A sign read private property. She groaned and went straight for the back fence, lifting her legs over and then falling back to the pavement before anyone could catch her. She attracted a few stares and odd looks from passers by but at least she knew where she was now.

She arrived back at the flats and took the elevator up to the fifth floor. That had really been close. At least she had a job now. Time for the second priority on the list. She entered the apartment. Anna was gone now, off to check in with Charlie and she picked up a sheet of paper from the counter. She set it down at the table and folded it into the shape of an envelope. Now she had to get hold of her sister. She took a pen and wrote 'M-e' before crossing it out. Meg had said the police were watching everything she was doing. They'd certainly read it. She considered addressing it to Dean but he would hardly be able to handle this well. Finally, she wrote:

_Mr Robert Singer_

_St Mary's Homeless Shelter_

_8 Elizabeth Street,Layer 5_

_Manhattan, New York_

Now she had to think of a way of writing. It was like a scene from one of those old spy movies, having to write in a secret code. Unfortunately, she was not a spy. She would just have to make do with what she had. She grabbed another sheet of paper, scribbling a fake return address at the top. And then she wrote in the most formal language she could.

_dear mr sinGEr,_

_we regreT to inforM you that thEre is not enouGh money in your_

She stopped. She had written out her secret message using capital letters so that it read 'GET MEG'. It was hardly subtle but she did not have time to think of anything else. Maybe they would just think it was from some person with a phobia of capital letters who just uses them in random places or they had a dodgy writing machine. She continued, coming up with some stupid story about not enough money in his marriage account to keep him staying at the shelter much longer. Bobby was smart. He would not take it seriously, at least she hoped he wouldn't. She hid in the address of an old cafe on layer 4 that her and Meg used to pass longingly, every day, sniffing the warm, cooking bread in the windows. And then a time too, in two days time, in the busy lunch hour. Finally, she capitalized 'R-U-B-Y' towards the end and sealed the envelope. She would just have to hope the message got to her sister in time, or they were in trouble.

*********

 

Anna

 

*********

 

She left Charlie's house with her head bent low. She could not have stayed long. Police cars had pulled up outside and she had had to escape through the back door. They were here about her, her and Ruby, apparently, the day before she had been 'kidnapped' their conversation with the other ginger girl in the marketplace had been unfortunately caught on camera and now they needed a word with the Bradburys. Everywhere she looked, missing posters for herself, her smiling face smeared on pieces of paper everywhere.

Still, she worried about Cas, what sister wouldn't. The sooner they found out from Meg if he was OK, the better. She took the elevator back to layer 3 and scanned her arm over the machine. Every time she did this, she worried, what if they could trace her through this, despite it being a new one. Her long sleeved sweater came down to below her wrists. That meant no more comments on the silver band that clung tightly to her arm. She felt the elevator come to a rough halt and went back out into the street again, the ground slightly cleaner, the building slightly whiter and even the skyline clearer.

Ruby wanted more things for their little home. And Anna admitted they needed them. Ruby would moan that the sweaters were the main problem but really, apart from food, they had none of the normal human being essentials. She found herself wandering back onto that same high street, ignoring the fact that they were low on money. She went first into a drugstore, found all the appropriate medicines, carefully inspecting each pack to make sure it was suitable. Then she got soaps and teeth cleaner. She stopped in the makeup aisle which was filled with girls trying on the testers. She watched carefully as a girl wiped at her pink lips as she held a small bottle that read 'anti-smudge lip gloss'. She chose out a few of these, not for herself but for Ruby. A dark eyeliner and equally dark lip gloss, also anti-smudge. Before heading to the counter, she picked up some candles and then payed. Next, she chose a clothes store. She knew the brand, she had never like it particularly but it was known for being cheap around some of the girls from lower layers she used to see at the church. She was about to reach out for the skirts and lace shirts she would have worn before but instead, chose dark leggings. They were meant to be 100% free movement although she doubted that was true. Sh chose a pencil skirt and some smart shoes for Ruby, provided she got that job at the office and once again paid. Then she went to the media store, chose a few old 'DVDs' as they had been known back then as she knew Ruby was a fan, and also a Black Rose CD. She could do with hearing the music her girlfriend liked if she was really going to get to know her. And then, there was just time to go to a corner store. She chose a few various magazines and some candy bars too, just in case they did run out of food and then she saw them sitting in a corner. It was a box of cigarettes. She had no idea which brand Ruby liked but it could hardly matter. She would thank her so much. But you had to be over 18 to buy any tobacco, that's what the sign read. And then she did something she would never have done before. Not without meeting Ruby. She snuck two boxes into the pocket of her trousers, pressing them down to make sure the bulk did not show at her hip. She paid, nervously and left. And then she found herself laughing, under her breath. That had been almost fun. Now she knew why Ruby did it.

**____________________**

"Ru-I mean Rita. It's me. Let me in!" She knocked at the door and footsteps came from behind it. There was the rattle of a chain and then it was pulled open.

"We've got a problem," said Ruby in a generally quiet voice. "Quick, shut the door."

Anna obeyed and sat down beside her on the bed. "What's this about?"

"Well the good news is, I got the job and also, guess who I ran into today." At Anna's blank look, she answered for herself. "None other than Connor the Creep."

"Connor? You mean that guy who beat you up?"

"Yeah."

"And what did you do?"

"Well I couldn't draw any attention to myself. So I ran."

"I thought he was being hunted by the police."

"I'm pretty sure they've forgotten about one jerk when they've got me. Which brings me to my next question. What happened with Charlie?"

"The police turned up and I had to get out."

Ruby sighed. "You're getting a lot of attention, honey. Hardly in the way you expected, right? And you've only been gone three days. Kinda makes you wonder if there's something else going on."

"No. It's probably just my dad. If they don't find me, he could sue them. Anyway, I did some shopping." She drew the t-shirt she had bought from one of her bags and held it to her chest. "What do you think?"

"Looking good, bitch."

"And I got you these." She tossed her a magazine and then the cigarettes. Ruby stared bluntly at them for a moment.

"A little too rich for my taste but good job. Wait, how did you get these?"

Anna shrugged and Ruby shook her head with a smirk on her large lips. "You didn't."

Anna nodded. "I did."

"And I didn't think you had it in you. My little thief. Already on the path to greatness. Here. For your troubles." She tossed one back and Anna shook her head.

"I already told you. I don't smoke."

"Fine. More for me. Pass the lighter."

Anna looked guilty.

"Don't tell me you didn't get a lighter. Never mind. We can light them on the cooker." Ruby went over to the cooker and switched on the gas. Sparks flew from the metal frame and she held it between her fingers before putting it in her lips.

"Actually, Ruby. I was wondering. If we get in another fight. With Connor or with the police, then what are we going to do. I can't fight. You can. And I need to learn how. How to be...tougher."

"You want to look tougher, light that cigarette. But it won't make you physically tougher at all. Here, let me help." Ruby stood up straight. "Punch me."

"What? I don't want to."

"Come on. Punch me."

Anna balled her fist and lightly hit Ruby in the stomach.

"A mouse just ran over down my chest. Come on, don't be scared. I have a high pain threshold."

Anna tried again, harder.

"Come on. I need more. More anger. Let me try something different." She shuffled her feet around. "Right. Imagine your dad. Imagine he's hurting your brother. Go on. Hit him. Kick him. Give him what he deserves. Or that girl from your school. What was her name? Hester? All that hate. Use it."

Anna kicked out, getting right below Ruby's neck.

"Ow shit. You're strong when you want to be. Stage two, self defence. Get into the right position. Hold out your shoulders, block their punches. Don't let them break you. Shove them off." At that, she leapt at Anna and she got into the position instructed. Ruby slammed at her arm, chopped down and it hurt, it really did but she held her hands together, not letting them go down.

"Now when a dude is attacking you, there's one simple rule: get them in the balls. If that's blocked, the eyes will do fine. Make sure your fingernails are nice and long."

Anna rolled her eyes as she straightened her shirt. "You're gross, Ruby."

"And number three. Your best insult is 'you're gross?' Come on, you can do better than that. Give me some real shit."

"You...you're a bitch, Ruby!"

"This is great. Continue."

"Yeah you're a bitch who likes to...I'm sorry. I can't do this. We don't have to do this now. We'll work on that later. So just...practise your fighting skills. We'll review this again tomorrow."

"There's one more thing," said Anna. She began to unpack the bag, handing over the magazines and the clothes and then the CD which Ruby gazed at for a moment, awestruck. "I thought maybe, I could learn to dress more like you. Not in public but here. I mean, with the piercings and band shirts and dark make up_"

"You want me to pierce your ears?"

"Well I have one on each ear but I was thinking maybe another, or two like you have. Maybe the nose too."

Ruby looked at her for a moment, then laughed. "This is turning into a really strange day. OK, you realize this is gonna hurt and there will be blood."

"I'm not that squeamish."

"Alright, alright. I have a needle around here somewhere."

"You bring piercing needles around everywhere with you?"

"Hey you never know, I could get a nasty splinter which needs removal. Or someone might want to pay me to pierce their ears." At Anna's shocked look, she said "Don't worry. It's free if I'm dating you." She took a sharp looking, silver needle from her pocket and went over to the gas cooker again. She placed it under the flame and called out for Anna to get a piece of soap. Anna did just that. Ruby laid her down on the bed and placed the bar of soap beneath her ear.

"OK, I'm gonna need some ice." This time she went to the freezer. She held the ice cube against the skin until it was numb. "Now, in the movies, they do it with an apple but that could infect it so soap is more suitable. At the count of three, I'm going to pierce the ear. One, two...three." Anna bit down on her lip as she felt a pain shoot through her earlobe. She shut her eyes and felt the red hot metal sear through her skin once again as it was removed. Ruby replaced the ice and repeated and as she went on, it got less and less painful until she did her nose. A trickle of blood came up from her nostril and she breathed.

"I'm OK, I'm OK."

"Yeah. Well the holes are gonna close up unless you out in some earrings so go ahead, I've got spares." And Ruby took a few sets of studs, she carefully put them in place in each sore hole.

"Can I look in the mirror?"

"Not yet. There's some more work to be done. Put on the new t-shirt you bought." Anna did not ask questions. Making Ruby cover her eyes, she got changed. Then Ruby put her down in the chair and dabbed her face with the makeup she had bought, finishing with dark eye shadow on her eyelids. "And now, for the finale." She helped secure Anna's hair in a bun and then placed the brown wig on top. She held the mirror to her face. "What do you think?"

And Anna admired her reflection. She knew her face was better framed by the straight red hair but she really did look like Ruby. She had never known much about style but what she did know was the dark blue contrasted with her pale skin. "I look like you."

"I know. It's like looking in a fucking mirror. Except for the skin. And the height. And the face shape and the eyes. And_"

"Alright I get it. I don't look like you."

"No way. You're the second best Ruby Masters who ever lived. I bet you could get away with being me easily." She planted a kiss on Anna's jaw and then down her neck, right up to the line of her collar bone. Anna smacked her hand away.

"No. Not yet."

Ruby nodded. "You're right. Let's-Let's do something else. What movies did you get? Psycho? Classic."

"What is it?"

"A horror movie. Don't worry. You won't find it scary. It was made nearly two hundred years ago." She flipped on their flat screen and placed her hand on Anna's. "At least I hope you won't be scared."


	12. XII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright here it is. I've been busy for the last two weeks but I finally have it. WARNING: contains sexual content.

 

 

 

> **Come to Stanson's beauty department. We have a new range of products that will leave you leaving young and healthy in no time. Including, skin creams, growth pills, hair and makeup. Made from all natural materials. Better quality for cheaper prices. Visit in store for more information.**
> 
> -Radio Advert for new department in 'Stansons', July 2148

*********

**Anna**

*********

They met with Meg at the cafe. Anna had never heard of it before but Ruby lead the way, seeming to know it well. It was a sweet little place, probably family owned, selling coffee and the most deliciously smelling baked bread. Ruby sat them down at a table on the outside. Was it really safe to be doing this? It had only been five days since she had vanished and the Anna Milton story, instead of dying down like Ruby said it would, was being broadcasted on news stations all over the state. And would the letter have even gotten to the homeless shelter in time?

So they waited. And waited. About ten minutes into their waiting, even though it felt like a lot longer, a girl strode up the street. It was Meg, she realized although wearing one of Anna's own outfits, one she had donated to the Masters family herself. She had never liked it much. It was an old, floaty shirt in a very pale shade of blue so that it was almost white and she had pulled on a blazer, also Anna's, over the top. You could say she was blending in, no one seemed to be judging her on her status and why on earth she was on this layer when she really belonged at the bottom of the city, apart from the fact that she had finished her costume with a large pair of cheetah spotted sunglasses.

"Anna, Ruby," she said loudly as she sat down and Anna drew a finger to her lips. She smiled apologetically. "Sorry. You guys look...different. It suits you, I like it."

"Wish I could say the same thing to you."

"Hey. I look great."

"No you really don't," said Ruby.

"So, what's it like living_"

At that moment the waitress came over with one menu for each of them and then left again, leaving Meg to continue with her sentence in a more hushed voice.

"What's it like, living the high life?"

"I wouldn't call it the high life exactly," Anna said.

"That's because you have high expectations. Ruby?"

"Well I've got a job. And it's cool...ish although I never thought have nosy neighbours would be so annoying. Now I'm going to ask the one question that Anna's dying to know before she pees herself. Did you find out about her brother?"

"You mean Castiel Milton? I got to the house. And I got as close as I could but there's cops at the shelter, cops there. I climbed up to one of their windows."

"That's my girl," said Ruby as she tapped her sister on the shoulder.

"Yeah well anyway, locked. And the curtains were pulled but from what I could see, it was pretty dark in there. I'm sorry. I wish I had more for you. By the way, that was a crappy code, Ruby."

"What do you mean?"

"The one you used in the letter to Bobby. He understood it within five seconds. The cops have been following me everywhere. That means no stealing."

"Ruby, you taught your sister to steal?" asked Anna in a mildly sarcastic gasp.

"Shut up. She's a natural. Meg, continue."

"Had to sneak  to get here. They obviously think you went through some serious shit, Ruby."

"Yeah whatever. Does mom know you're here?"

"Yeah. She wanted to come herself. Said she was dying to see you. She can't even have one phone call?" Meg widened her eyes at the older girl's face.

"Meg, they can track phone calls you know. Don't you think they'll start wondering why the underappreciated Masters family have started getting mysterious calls?"

"Are you ladies ready to order?" The waitress had returned and bent over them, impatiently tapping her stylus against her electronic pad.

Meg hesitated and picked up her menu. "I think one of the bread rolls sounds nice. With cheese. Yeah and I'll have a juice with that."

"The same for me," said Ruby. "But a side of fries and some coffee instead."

And Anna ordered the same too, only so their waitress could leave.

"Anything else to report?"

"Uh, Connor's back. They let him off and everything. He's saying what a bitch you are and stuff. Guess he finally got the idea.."

"Seriously, what's his problem? The guy knows I don't like him. That jerk. I saw him a few days ago, you know. He was chasing me. And he know what I look like now."

"He's not gonna turn you in, is he?"

"Who knows."

And then, for the final time, the waitress brought three plates balanced on a tray. Meg dug into her roll and shut her eyes.

"Oh my God. Never has bread tasted this amazing to me before. So you can actually afford this stuff now, what with having Anna?"

"I guess so." Ruby looked over her shoulder, her eyes flickering over her girlfriend and then to the end of the street as if she had seen something. Then she turned her head back to them.

"Well maybe I can come and see your apart_"

"No. You said it yourself. They're following you everywhere. That means no more of these visits, no more phone calls, no more letters written in secret code. We can't meet anymore."

"So I'll never see you again?"

"Stop making it sound so emotional."

"Well it is emotional. I'm your sister."

"I will see you _again_ ," Ruby concluded in a tone Anna had never heard used before. It was serious. She was trying to convince her sister of a fact that seemed so unlikely. And she was trying to convince herself, too. And she was lying. Anna watched the two sisters talk for a while and compare stories of their times apart. Meg had found a pair of glasses in the recycling center with completely non scratched lenses. Ruby talked about what work was going to be like and all the low fat options of everything and about their apartment and the fries and their neighbours. She wanted to see Cas more and more desperately every minute, just by watching this other girl with such a healthy relationship with her younger sibling. Meg and Cas were the same age though Meg seemed older. She had seen more of the world, been around the rough side of town more.

And then she took the last bite of the bread roll. It was supposed to taste good but her throat was all dry and it felt more like raw rice which as much as she tried to deny it, she had swallowed a mouthful of at elementary school when some girl lied to her about it. She could not even remember what the lie had been now though it must have either been pretty good or she must have been really gullible. She took the money from her pocket and got up. The wig hair swished forwards from her face, revealing a flash of dark red and then her ear.

"Hey, nice piercings, Anna," said Meg. "Let me guess, my sister? I told her she should be doing it professionally."

"Yeah well, guess what? I don't think sticking red hot pieces of metal through people's ears is necessarily a highly paid job. Plus, people can do it for themselves or go to a proper store with machines and everything. It's all there on the network," said Ruby. "Anyways, this has been great and all but we'd better be getting back." She hugged her sister tightly and then Anna did too although not quite as lovingly, more in a 'trying to be friendly' way.

"Catch you later," Ruby called in a high and loud voice across the pavement so that a few people turned and stared. Meg waved and then she was gone around the corner. Ruby turned to look at Anna.

"I'm really sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"She couldn't find out about your brother."

Anna turned and stared off into the distance.

"Don't ignore me. I've seen you, you know. You're worried out of your mind about Cas. He has your parents to deal with and no idea how to cope. I know that Meg can take care of herself. She's been living on the streets since she was a baby, this is the only way she knows but him. You talk in your sleep. And you have nightmares." She gripped Anna's pale hand. "I'd kiss you now but for one, we're in public and...well that's the only reason I can think of. Don't worry though, you'll get your kiss. Let's get back to the apartment." Ruby moved her finger up to her wrist. They began to leave then but a group of people streamed past them. They were running, round a corner, towards Times Square, Anna suddenly noticed, and that was when they heard the loud buzzing noise and then talking in a slightly muffled voice like through a microphone.

"What's going on there?"

"Well whatever it is, it's got them excited. Come on, let's go check it out." Soon they joined the crowd and Anna had to grip tightly onto Ruby's hand, just so as not to lose her. Most of the people here towered over them, maybe as a result of some of those new health drugs available. Everyone over eighteen seemed to be taking them now, so long as they could afford them. She stood on almost the very tips of her toes. She could thank her mother for the years of ballet lessons. There was a billboard and a man talking on the screen. She craned her neck and a man hoisted his young daughter up onto his shoulders, ruining her view again. The man on the screen was talking. Ruby's hand suddenly grew very tight on hers. She stepped slightly to the side and this time it was clear. Isaac Reynolds, she knew him from her parents discussions. Apparently, her father had been, and probably still was, a big supporter of his. He was a politician and like quite a few, hated by the general public, making you wonder just how he received so many votes. He held a microphone right in front of his mouth which was why, she imagined, there was so much feedback.

"To all those listening, we have some very bad news. We regret to tell you that we have reason to believe that there is a possibility of the homeless holding another demonstration."

"That's a lot of big talk for a man who can't even choose a nice tie," Ruby whispered in Anna's ear.

"Some messages passed between resistance leaders have been leaked and decoded by the government technologists and they have seemed to be hinting towards violence. There have been few of these so called messages but we now have a hold on them and are working hard. We are urging the public to stay calm and that everything will be alright, We are well prepared and will be bringing in updates. Please do not panic and everything will be fine. Thank you." The screen went blank and people were most likely expected to go back to their daily business. They did not. For, unlike he had instructed them to do, they  _were_ panicking. Shouting even at each other to gather up as many supplies as possible. Children were asking hysterical parents what was going on. You would think it was a war, an apocalypse even, due to their reactions. Anna turned her head and looked over at Ruby.

"Ruby, what do we do?"

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

"I can't believe this. This can't happen." Ruby had been marching up and down the apartment for a good ten minutes now, muttering and running her hands through her hair. "I can't believe this."

"I take it you know a lot in this subject."

"Sorta do. I mean, it's pretty much the only interesting thing that's ever happened down on layer 5." She sat down finally and she brushed a tear from her cheek, just as Ruby met her eyes. She had heard all the tales, some in great depth from Bobby and some briefly outlining the history like in a textbook. At the time, she had just been one or maybe two and still with her mom, she remembered the day vaguely as Lilith had stared fixed at their small boxset as the newscaster talked plainly about what had happened. Her dad had gone out, probably for a drink. Al had put her to bed. Most people would be shocked that she had such an early memory and it likely was her first memory.

"I have no idea that much about it. I don't know anyone who actually took part. Those who did either died or got taken away. And then even they got the death penalty or life sentence. They make it out to be our fault but I don't think it was. I mean so it got out of hand but I believe it was organized in some way. It's a popular theory. They did just as much damage as we did. Our government system is not as perfect as you see it."

"I don't see it as perfect."

"Well now you do but before you met me, you were brainwashed to think like everyone else." A knock came from the door. Ruby ran to answer it and Anna straightened her wig.

"Angela, what a  _nice_ surprise."

"Did you hear. There's going to be another riot. The last was so awful and I couldn't bear to put my kids through that."

"I'm sure it will be nothing. It's just an overreaction." She took both her hands. "I promise you there will be no riots."

Angela nodded. "Thank you, Rita. I just...you're right. I'll see you tomorrow."

Ruby closed the door gently.

"That was nice advise," Anna called.

"Yeah. Just wish I could believe it." She folded her arms. "If this is happening, we are so, so screwed. They expect us to behave like sensible people and the good guys, I want to be in there joining the ass kicking. Who cares if I get hauled off to jail? It's worth it, right."

"Ruby, you really do want the worst for yourself, don't you?"

"Hey, arguing back already. Nice, girlfriend. Anyway, we should probably calm down now." She spotted the cross necklace which had been pulled just above the collar of her sweater. "Thought you didn't believe in that stuff, anymore?"

"Oh this." Anna tucked it away. "You're not going to argue with my religion are you?"

"No, of course not. It's just...well your dad and mom told you that that was right and everything. And they think what you're doing is wrong. So it makes no sense."

"Right but as far as I know, we were created to all be equal. We need something to believe in. It's nice, thinking that someone's watching over us. I mean, there must have been something behind the fact that the two of us got away."

"Yeah, to live this crappy life."

"It's not half as bad as what you had before."

"You got me." She meant over Anna and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "There you go, as promised." Then she turned around. "Right, I can't think on an empty stomach."

"For God's sake, you just ate."

"Hey, don't judge me." She took out a small fruit bar. According to the label, it contained 'all the goodness of real fruit' and was a mix of strawberry and banana. And in green capital letters, it read 'two of your five a day'. She took a bite. And it certainly tasted better than real fruit, too. She came and sat back down, chewing through the large bite she had taken.

"So Ruby, I was wondering how serious you've ever gotten in a relationship."

"Well you're my third. First was Sam. Second, Bela. Sam was too innocent and we broke it off quite early. We had less than two months. We kissed a few times, he said he loved me, and we went on some shitty dates."

"And with Bela?"

"She was more fun. It was nice, having someone with the same interests as me. We kissed too although quite a bit more."

"And did you...you know?"

Ruby sighed. "Oh I see where this is going. Yes, yes we did. A few times actually."

"And with anyone else?"

"Nein. At the time, we were all romantic, saying we were the only ones for each other and stuff. Wait a second. Did you want to_"

"No, no way. No. Nothing like that. I was just curious. That was all." Her cheeks turned really red.

"I'm going to jump to conclusions and decide you still have that intact."

Anna laughed. "You would be correct to assume that. I'm just trying to lighten the mood a bit."

Ruby tossed the wrapper of her bar to the floor and finished chewing. "This is an awkward topic. And it's working. I think a bit too awkward though. Uh, could we maybe just go back to the whole riot thing. We need to discuss it at some point."

"Well from what you told me, I want to to understand that I'm beginning to get it. I was so ignorant before and I want to thank you Ruby. I'm saying the world in two dimensions, in five layers. It's all making sense now and I believe you, I don't think it was the homeless' fault." She put Ruby's face between her hands. She gave her a far more passionate kiss than ever before. Tongue met tongue, lips on lips and everything just naturally interlocking in the right places. Ruby's eyes met Anna's, confused at first but then just going along with it. Her hands moved the gently caress the hair back from her forehead.

"What was that for?" Ruby asked as she returned into a crouched position.

"Good luck. Because I know you, all of you, could have had it better."

"That's what you said after our first kiss."

Anna giggled. "Really? Guess it's just my best line. I haven't got any better and besides, it's true."

Ruby's face brightened as her lips twitched upwards. She wrapped her arms around Anna's slender shoulders. And then suddenly, they were doing it. Anna raised her arms into the air and Ruby slipped of her shirt with ease. She through back her mane of red hair and then they sat on the couch. Ruby traced her finger down Anna's lustrous and pale legs. Her eyes were filled with longing and she brushed her hands up over the curve of her hips. She took her by the hand and led her into the front room. And she was polite, she wanted this to be a special moment for Anna. She let her undress herself under the blankets of her own bed. And then she climbed in on top. Anna brought the duvet over their heads with one hand and pressed her other down to Ruby's chest. Her slender frame, her skin was soft under Ruby's touch, compared to the taller girl's rough hands, scarred and bruised. Anna was alternating from different parts of the body, kissing her arm, her neck, her chest. And Ruby well and truly was in Heaven. She moved upwards as Anna reached out her arms and she was taking control. They rolled over as much as they could in the tiny singled bed and lay side by side. Anna curled her body up small and Ruby's legs wrapped around her waist. Her fingers moved slowly as they found Anna's breasts and she flinched but then just smiled. Anna's hand moved up her wrist to reach her shoulders. Their lips brushed and she found Anna's other hand on her forehead, bringing their faces against one another. It was energetic, hot and an erotic moment for both of them and her hand caught the bed stand. The bed creaked beneath their weight. They clawed at each other in hunger, gasping. Anna went tense in her arms and then relaxed. It had been her first time, she was exhausted. She turned to face away from the other girl and Ruby kept her hands wrapped around her middle. She kissed her ear and Anna could feel her warm breath on the nape of her neck.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?"

"For making that so amazing. For being so amazing. I'm trying to make this a non-cheesy as I can. But thank you."

Ruby looked at her with true affection. She made sure the sheet remained covering both of them, to keep Anna warm and soon she felt her light breathing beneath her as she fell asleep in her arms. Ruby felt a grin spread across her cheeks as she got up. She went back to her own bed and pulled the duvet up to her neck, looking over at Anna's closed eyes.

"Good night, Anna," she said and then she too, fell asleep.


	13. XIII

 

 

> **Dear Katherine,**
> 
> **Thank you for signing our petition against capital punishment being brought back to the USA. We are very grateful Unfortunately, we did not manage to reach our goal of 2,000,000 signatures before our deadline and capital punishment has been re legalized. Do not worry, the fight is not over yet. You can still write a letter to the government with your views or fill in another one of our petitions in the links below.**
> 
> **From The EAC Team**
> 
> -Email sent to all those who signed a petition not to legalize capital punishment in the USA, 29th October 2128

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

_"Freak, freak, freak."_

_The loud whispers surrounded her. They boomed out over the land. And then, she was running, blindly and wildly but she always ended up in the same destination. And now they had forms, too. Shadows, demonic shadows with claws and teeth and they were solid, they were dragging her by the toes. They were fast and their hands tore and scratched at her legs. She was in agony and then she was in front of a mirror or rather a row of mirrors, a room of mirrors. She was staring at her own reflection, lying crumpled in a corner and in pain. She seemed so ashamed of herself. But then the frown turned into a grin, an evil grin with thousands of needle sharp teeth. So threatening._

_"You're a freak, Anna. No one will ever love you. You really think Ruby cares? She's using you. She only cares about Bela. You can't do anything right. You can't even kill yourself right."_

_Anna felt herself fumbling for her MEDI-band but it was gone, leaving a slit in her wrist and she was choking. Blood was pouring from her mouth and blocking up her throat and she could not breathe. She was dying, for real this time. And the thousands of Anna's around her, they were laughing, cackling. And then there were Rubys too and then their hair tumbled into blonde curls and it was thousands, then millions of Hesters, coming closer and closer with their arms outstretched, all chanting 'freak, freak, freak.'_

_"Stop!" she yelled. "Leave me alone." She covered her eyes and then all was silent. She took away her hands. She was alone again and in a darkened room. Their was a light at the end. And the sound of a child sobbing. She neared it. Yes, very definitely a child, a very small form, hunched over and crying into their hands._

_"Are you alright?"_

_The figure looked up and she stared into her brother's dark blue eyes that she knew all too well. Tears streamed from them, caught in his long eyelashes and trailing silvery lines on his cheeks._

_"Anna. Save me. Save me." His voice was so lifeless, like the spoken words were written down on paper. It was hauntingly frightening._

_"Cas? I_"_

_"Anna. Save me. Dad's hurting me. All the pain. You have to make it stop." A spot of blood fell into his right eyebrow. And then there was more of it. A thick crimson liquid which began to coat his face. And all around her, Hester's laugh and still 'freak, freak, freak.'_

**____________________**

"Anna. Anna. Get up!" She felt a hand clawing at her shoulder, and tearing at her skin and she lashed out, trying to stop it. "Anna. Relax, it's me, Ruby." Anna opened her eyes and sure enough, Ruby's deep brown eyes were looking down on her. She was in bed and the sheet had come down to just above her waist, leaving the top half of her body naked against the morning air and it tangled as she pulled it up.

"You're safe. It's over."

She took a few deep breaths as she tried to shake off the nightmare. "I'm OK, it's juts stupid."

Ruby nodded. "OK, well I'm gonna go and make you some breakfast. It's early but that means we have more time to go shopping."

Anna wrapped her sheet around herself as a toga and got up, beginning to pull leggings on underneath it. "Really? But we've been going shopping all week. We're not made of money, you know."

"Whoa slow down. You sounded like my mom there. Anyway, one, a little birdie told me that a new exotic fruit store opened up across the road. Ever had any exotic fruit, Anns?"

"Don't call me that. And all you can get nowadays is apples. But I know some from school."

"Alright, reason number two, the flat is really starting to stink so from now on, I'm smoking outside."

"Or you could just not smoke at all."

"Um no. I told you, it's impossible. Number three, we need to stop at the chemist and get you some non-prescription drugs. Or are we gonna pretend that didn't just happen?"

Anna unwrapped the sheet from herself and tossed it onto the bed frame as she finished putting her t-shirt on. "I'm fine. Really. It was a nightmare. You've had nightmares before, right?"

"Yeah, well this isn't one nightmare is it. I told you, I've seen this happening all week. And to be honest with you, it's not much of a compliment for me if you have nightmares right after we have sex."

"Alright I'll come with you. What's for breakfast?"

"Madame, I'm glad you asked. Actually I'm not because despite what I said about making breakfast before we did shopping, I was hoping we could later have a Caribbean feast of rare fruits. Short version, we have nothing."

"Wait a second. Yes we do. There were four slices of bread and half a jar of jam in the refrigerator."

"There  _were_ but they're gone now." She grinned as Anna shot her an annoyed glance. "What? I couldn't sleep thanks to your muttering so I made myself a snack. You coming or what?"

Anna put on her shoes and tied her hair up, just to put the wig back on her head. They went out of the door and into the elevator to go down with an elderly couple who Anna had seen around a few times. She nodded to them and offered up the friendliest smile she could and they all departed on the ground floor. And then they were on the highstreet. The holographic clock on one of the billboards told her that it was 8.08 and just to confirm it, had written the digital time beside it in bigger letters.

"Right so I'm gonna go get you those pills and  _you_ are gonna pick out the most interesting fruits possible. See you back here in a half hour?"

"Sure," Anna said and yes, there was the store Ruby had told her about. The window displayed a row of apples that seemed just a bit pinker and softer, balanced in front of a spiky yellow fruit. And then there were two long and thin ones, also in yellow and a big green sphere. Next to it was a second one but cut in half to reveal a pink flesh inside, filled with little black seeds. As she went in, she scanned her new ID chip and a bell rang. She had not seen one of these places in ages that relied so little on technology with shelves made of wood and plastic bags to collect all your purchases in. A kindly looking man with gray hair which seemed too old to fit his face, and glasses, smiled at her. There were a bunch of mothers already there at the back, some with their young children with them.

"Are you looking for anything specific?" He was talking to her. She glanced up from a green, oddly shaped food.

"Oh no, I was just uh, browsing."

"I expect some of these you've never seen before."

"Well no actually."

"When I was your age, no matter which country you were in, you could find all these in stores. Back then, most people did not even care. They were all stuffing their faces with burgers and fries. Now everyone's concerned about health and you have all those replacements for everything. Vitamin drinks and all. I had to travel halfway across the world to find some of these." He held up a plastic box of small, red fruits. "They're strawberries, they're really sweet and juicy. And these beauties are raspberries. Sometimes I mix them. That would be a fruit salad. I'm a fruit expert, you could say. What's your name?"

"Anna," she said even though she knew she was not supposed to.

"Anna. That's a beautiful name. My aunt, she was called Anna. Are you here alone? Where are your parents?"

He meant well, all his questions were soft but they made her feel uncomfortable, especially as she had only just met him. But she answered. "My sister's next door. She's looking after me."

"Well then, that's alright. So Anna, what would you like to buy?"

"I'll take some...streeberries?"

He laughed. "Strawberries. Some raspberries, too?"

She nodded and then picked up just one large green fruit, the ones with the pink insides. "And this." And then she took a few others that had just interested her and he put them all into a bag for her.

"Nine credits," he said.

She rummaged around in her purse when she saw a few small shelves on the counter with various candy items and birthday cards, as if someone would actually come in here looking for that kind of thing. But then there was a small book, a notebook or diary and all her teenage dreams of the future came running back. "So how much is that now?" she asked as she picked it up.

"Still nine credits. You can have it for free."

She glanced up. "What?"

"For you and your sister. She can't be much older than you and you need the money more than me. I'm making enough from the number of pretentious health obsessed mothers who come in here everyday." He lowered his voice at that as one of them was now coming to pay.

"Thank you." Anna made her way out, with the plastic bag hanging from her wrist and the little book tucked away under her arm. Of course, she had not spent long enough in the store for half an hour to have passed. More like ten minutes. But then, she thought, Ruby should have finished now too and been out. She peered into the pharmacy's window but could not spot her. Eventually, she found her down an alleyway, smoking on a cigarette as she leaned against the wall.

"Well hey," she called, looking up as Anna appeared. "Look who's back early."

"Anna stopped in her tracks. "You are."

"I'm not finished yet you know." She threw it to the ground and stamped it out. "OK now I am." She strode over to her. "Get anything good?"

"Yeah. I mean I think it's good at least. What about you?"

"Bought out the whole stock. This should keep you going and the nightmares far away. Come on. Are we getting out of here or what?"

 

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

"You weren't lying, Ruby. Didn't they think it was weird you were buying all this stuff?"

Ruby shrugged as she stuffed a second jar of pills into the back of the cupboard. The label turned to face her. 'Naturally sourced from Kansas'. Kansas where warping was legal. She turned so it faced away from her and slammed the door shut. "Pretty sure that teenager at the desk couldn't care less. Are we gonna eat then? I expect you're hungry."

"I am. Aren't you?"

"I had that bread earlier, remember?"

"Yeah I know but is that enough for you?"

Ruby grinned. The kid knew her well. "Nope." She took the first fruit from the bag or rather the first fruits. They were in a little plastic box, quite a few of them, small, slightly misshapen and bright red."

"Oh those. Uh, the man at the store said they were streeberries." Anna snatched one from in front of Ruby and popped it in her mouth, spitting the leaf onto the floor. "Mmm, that's really good."

Ruby followed her but instead in smaller bites. "You're right. I like these streeberry things. And this?" The next item her hand came across was yellow and larger with a tough skin.

"Actually, I don't know. We learned the names at school. There was one that was yellow I remember. And sweet and quite filling. They said you had to peel off the skin first and they handed around slices. A...bana?" She shook her head. "That's not right. Nabana? I think that's it. A nabana." This time, she nodded.

"Alright, moment of truth." Ruby dug into the dotted skin with a knife and through the middle. She cut out the flesh and quartered it. And then, she popped it in her mouth, whole. Her cheeks sucked in and she spat it out. "Ew. It's so...sour. Excuse me, I need something else." She took another few 'streeberries' and gave a deep sigh as their sweetness washed the sickly flavor away.

"Sorry," Anna said as she struggled to keep in giggles. "Now I think about it, even the inside doesn't look much like a nabana." She took out a fruit shaped like a crescent moon. "This is a nabana."

They continued in this way for an hour. It was a long meal of taste testing. They found an orange version of the sour fruit which surprisingly was a lot better. They feasted on large slices of the pink and green fruit which in Ruby's opinion, was the best. There were purple fruits with soft insides in little bunches and even one spiky fruit which they removed the leaves from before sharing. Anna rubbed her stomach as she sucked the juice from one last 'streeberry.'

"That was great. We should go there more often. The man there, he was so nice. And he gave me this for free." She held up a small notebook in delight. Ruby leaned over to take a closer look.

"What's that for?"

She looked at her in confusion. "I never told you, did I? I want to be a journalist when I grow up. I mean, when I was little_"

"You still are little."

"Thank you for that, Ruby. Anyway, when I was five, I wanted to be a ballerina."

"Naturally."

"My dad disapproved and my mom took his side. So I tried to look at other options. I had no friends, even at elementary school."

"It sounds like you're looking for sympathy."

"Well why else would I be telling you this story in so much detail? Anyway, I read the newspaper on the train in. And I wanted to be a journalist. Even my dad thought that was pretty reasonable and I used to write stories and everything down. My plans for college were English, History, Geography and Religious studies, they would work out best. Although I wanted to take photography classes too, on the side."

"So what does this have to do with the book?"

"One day we'll go home, Ruby. And I want to publish our story. Yours too. Make things better for us. Start a family and my family will be OK with that."

"Whoa, slow down with that, girl. We've known each other a month."

"I know, I'm sorry. Even if it's not you, I want my dad to realize both that not all people can be the same. And I'll write about your family too and how badly they have it. You said you wanted to work at that office, doing the same thing."

"But Anna and I'm not saying this is a bad idea. We will go home one day, I promise. But if you write this down, what if someone finds it. What if you leave it in a cafe and someone finds it and reports it."

"Then I'll only keep it in the house."

"What if Angela comes round and finds it. We can't risk being caught."

"You're all backwards and forwards about this thing, aren't you? When I said the same to you, you just carried on the way you were." She grabbed the book from the table and went to sit on the sofa with her arms folded. She began to scribble something down and Ruby did not doubt it was about her. Or the nightmares. She sat down on the other end of the sofa and watched as Anna pulled herself as far away from her as possible. Ruby switched their flatscreen on to find images of a woman being shown, followed by a group of men. The newscaster's voice talked over them.

"And these criminals have been on death row for seventeen years. The estimated date for their hanging will be next Wednesday. This will be the first hanging to take place in New York since it was re legalized in 2128. We now move over to_"

Ruby switched it to mute. She leaned over Anna's shoulder. "So what do you think of that?" Even she was a bit shocked that they could go that far. She knew that it was legal but it had not been done in ages. "Anna?"

Anna did not look up or give any sign that she was aware of her existence.

"Oh come on. Look I'm sorry. You can write your stupid diary. It's not like anyone will read it, right?"

Anna shook her head.

"This isn't gonna work out, whatever crazy thing we have here if you won't even talk to me."

Anna slammed the book shut and straightened up. "Fine. Yes, I heard about the hangings. And I don't understand why they'd do that. It's horrible, it's gross. It makes you wonder just what their crime was. But it's not really any of our business and there's nothing we can do about it. Because we're not special. We're just two kids, causing trouble and as you said, we can't draw attention to ourselves."

"I didn't use those exact words but you summed it up pretty well. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to use the bathroom." She went in and locked the wooden door behind her. She began to unzip her trousers when a scrap of paper fell from her pocket. Curious, she bent over and picked it up. And then, there were those honest words in large lettering. It was the advert for warping, she had printed from the shelter's computer, month's ago now. When she read Bela's letter. Back then, she really had wanted to do it but meeting Anna, it had made hr think some more that maybe, just maybe this was not the only escape from it all. Anna had made her promise not to think about it again and she had meant to dispose of it but she had not been able to. It made her think of Bela now. Back then, she had not believed in romance and she still did not that much now. It was always stupid cliches, soulmates and the search for 'the one'. She had thought Bela was her one and then honestly with Anna, even after the first few days she had been considering the thought that maybe you could have two 'ones'. She had liked Anna. Meg liked Anna, her mom liked Anna. And they were both in bad enough positions, whether they related through the depression or the daddy issues. But Anna was not the right one for her, she knew now. Just think about Bela's pink hair in the sunlight as she smoked beside her, or the way she had pressed her sharp fingernails into her arm, made her know. Anna was a love interest in the tv show that was her life, along with Sam.

She folded the piece of paper into her pocket. She would forget for now. But Anna could not find this. Because while living wise, despite the nightmares, Anna seemed pretty stable whereas she was not. And she would not be for a long time.


	14. XIV

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

Ruby carried the tray, balancing it perfectly between both hands. She walked at a brisk yet not too fast pace so as to not let the tray wobble, to not allow it to tilt even a fraction to the left. Her eyes were fixed on a point straight ahead while occasionally floating downwards to check for objects that might obscure her perfect footing. To make one mistake, in such an important place as this, one little slip up, would result in humiliation, especially for her to spill piping hot and freshly made coffee down her skirt. She knew that now. The seemingly simple task of bringing food and drinks to the managers of the business required thought and practice. She had to know just how long to take, rushing was frowned upon and if you were slow, while Mrs Baurese was patient, some of her partners were not so much. Three months. Three months Ruby and Anna had been living away from their families. And it was going well. Well, better than it had been for Ruby before. She had a job now in this office and the pay was good. Some of the men and a few of the women here in this office, she had heard their arrogant attitudes, especially about the situation of those in layer 5. Every time she heard a whisper of criticism, she had to restrain that inner psychopath from stabbing them with the nearest pair of scissors. It obviously would not do well for her career and her and her girlfriend would be back to square one.

Then there was the case of her and Anna. Whilst they had made up over the whole argument, something was gone from the relationship. Maybe it was the fear that if they were caught, it was now a possibility that they could get hanged. She would often question it lying in her bed at night as she struggled to sleep with the busy noise of outdoor life streaming in through the window. Or maybe Anna was starting to have doubts about this herself. She had been right though. The search for the pair of them had certainly died down. She was pretty sure that everyone had either just forgotten or could not be bothered to give a damn. Which for them was a benefit. However, that did not stop the media broadcasting the story every few days. The Anna Milton story could not have been bigger. Most relationships would have ended at this point. Before Sam and Bela, Ruby had dated other girls and boys, both of whom they would break apart after just a couple of weeks. In normal circumstances, it would be over by now, too but at this point, they really had no other choice than to get on. They still kissed. They still slept in the same bed once or twice a week, sometimes clothed and sometimes unclothed. But when their rough lips pressed together, the passion that they had had, it was barely there.

"Hey Rita, nice skirt," one of the workers there called out to her as he slid his hand across a touchpad that hung over his desk. Most of the men seemed to know her name, or at least her fake name, by now and after all, there was only one secretary. But all their names had become a blur and she had never had more than one conversation with them. They mostly led to them hitting on her, at which time she had to promptly and 'coincidentally', leave.

As she reached the end of the hallway, she scanned her own fingerprint against the reader pad which automatically granted her access to the elevator. She had worried at first that it was a danger, giving away her fingerprint but it was a risk she had to take and every worker here did it. Besides, it only went into the business records which she happened to know from a brief discussion with one of the tech support, were completely private and secure.

The floor rose beneath her and by now, she was used to this too. It glided up in a far more smooth fashion than the bumpy glass elevator back in the apartment and though it was faster, had a way of making you feel less dizzy. As it jolted to a steady stop, she scanned her way back out and squeezed down the aisle, past Derek's desk and to the glass panelling in front of the conference room. Behind it, silhouettes of the managers were visible, rocking slightly backwards and forwards as they spoke and she could just make out a low mumble. She gave a gentle rap at the door and the talking stopped until it was opened. It was another of the faceless managers who politely thanked her and instead of each of them coming up and taking their own, she had to walk around, handing them each over. It was lucky they were all having the same, otherwise she would never have known which one of them was which. Mrs Baurese was the only woman in the crowd and she shot her a smile as she handed over her coffee cup.

"Thank you, Rita," and it was the most thanks she had gotten out of any of them. She had respect for her boss, whether she felt the same or was just being nice to the beginner with the second being more likely. And then they dismissed her. Somehow, she found her way back to the small lounge where in breaks, workers could go and relax and hang out with friends. She had her own coffee which she drank in the corner, gagging at the slightly too bitter taste from her not being able to put too much sugar in as it could give it a rather raw taste. She sagged into one of the sofas which was made of a pale turquoise felt, and she glanced up at the clock to pass the time. Technically, now was not a break for her but from experience, she knew that these meetings could last hours and one coffee was enough to keep them going through that time. Sometimes they would go on until after the office closed, by which time she would already be well on her way home. Already people were beginning to fumble out, she watched them through the glass which surrounded all four walls of the lounge in thin windows, set in for decoration. Some were pushing each other out of the way. It was like they were school children desperate to be first in the queue for lunch, or rather, the people in the shelter at mealtimes. But all exits would be blocked until five, unless someone had special permission to leave early.

She took the final sip and the last drop fell down the back of her throat and her eyes darted upwards. It was roughly thirty seconds until five unless that clock was wrong which she doubted it was. Everything had to be very precise here. Even a bell would go off once they could leave, adding to the school classroom nature of the business. She packed a few items into her bag when the ringing cme on, loud enough that everyone in rooms without bells could hear it but not so much that people had the need to block their ears. As she made her way out into the hallway, she let a few others push in front of her, giant schoolkids, ready to get home for their tea. And then she saw Mrs Baurese come out of the elevator, on her own, she assumed all the others from the meeting were either still there or had already left in the crowd.

The older woman nodded to her as she passed. "I expect I'll see you tomorrow then, Rita."

"Yes ma'am," she quickly replied.

_What are you doing saying yes ma'am? Next you'll be curtseying to her._

Ruby wanted to tell her brain to shut up with its sarcastic comments. She turned with her hair sweeping through the air and left through the front door. It being only just the Fall, the sun was still burning hot in the sky with not a single cloud to obscure it but with the evening coming along, their was a slight chill in the air and she pulled her cardigan around herself more tightly, not that it would do much good. For the first few days, she had taken the magnatram or some other form of public transport but she always found herself running into Derek, making her wonder if he was stalking her. So from then on, she had walked. It took a good forty five minutes and for sure it was dangerous and  yes, she wanted to keep Anna out of danger. In fact, in a way it felt like she was almost keeping her from the outside world with her locked up in their apartment every day, writing in that notebook, after what she had told her about trying to keep as low profile as possible. But with Ruby, she was used to the danger, she was more likely to be spotted on the magnatram anyway, and to be perfectly honest, she just missed the thrill of when she was a regular street thief.

She passed a construction site from which over the scaffolding, she could see the top of a shiny, brand new crane, lifting up scraps of metal and then for no apparent reason, putting them back down.

She turned and came face to face with a no entry sign down her usual path.

"Oh shit," she muttered. Guess she would have to go an even longer way. But who could have know how much harm changing her route for one day would be. And she swung around a pole as she changed direction, some of the new silver paint rubbing off on the palm of her hand in a slightly different and ugly shade of gray. She wiped it on her skirt too and then groaned as a small stain started to show. She jumped over a cardboard box, split open and abandoned on the roadside. Another tram pulled past her along the metal inlaid into the road and then it was all quiet. She continued down a small one way street. It was near enough the main road and if she had another encounter like she had had twice with Connor, then at least someone would notice. So she was not scared at all. In the future, to tell this story, she would say she had known something was wrong, something was going to happen, but really, she had not expected anything to happen at all.

Smoke blew through a grate at the ground which seemed to be floating upwards from someone's basement. And then she felt it. Someone was standing behind her. She knew, one, because she could hear their breathing even though they were trying to keep as silent as possible, and two, because they held the barrel of a gun against her spine. She turned, just her head, slowly to the left. It was a man, at least she thought it was but he wore a cap and a bandana over his mouth like an old fashioned bandit. Sadly, no striped shirt.

"Hand over your purse." His voice was emotionless and quite cold, he had done this many times, she could tell. She wondered if he had ever fired an actual bullet, though. "Do it, I will shoot!"

"Whoah just...take it easy buddy. I don't have any money." This was a lie. She had five or six credits tucked away into her cardigan pocket but it was hardly the amount he would be looking for.

"I know you're lying. I can tell. Now give me your money or I fire!"

"Alright. Sure." She raised one hand while putting the other to her pocket and at the same time, taking a step forwards. And then, her hand came out so that he barely even saw it coming. He stumbled, just slightly and she dodged the rebound punch, swinging her leg over and kicking him and then before he could fall, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. His nose was bleeding and his hands were trying to grasp for it. It was twisted at a funny angle and most likely broken. He would not be able to fix that, judging on his choice of lifestyle.

"Now you listen here. You're going to stop this armed robbery crap. You're gonna try and have a good honest life. Understand?" And then, before he could reply, she tossed him to the ground. She began to stride away, a dangerous move since he had a gun but she had seen in his eyes, he could not fire, he was not that type of person. He lived off other's fear to make himself seem better than he was. She heard him slide of the ground. And then, before she could do anything, his arm connected with her shoulder blade. She toppled down. It ached. That was going to leave nasty bruise. She got onto her knees and pulled him down too and they were struggling against each other. As she took the upper hand, his pistol clattered to the floor. He made a snatch for it but she got there first. She did not intend for it to happen. In fact, she barely remembered pulling the trigger. She had felt the exasperation, the sweat on her cold skin, but not this. But the gun had fired with a loud bang. And his head had lolled backwards. It had been fatal. Straight between the eyes. The bullet pierced straight through his skull and into his brain and then out of the back, splattering a mess over everything.

It took a good ten seconds for what had just happened to sink in. When it did, a part of her imagined the word 'MURDERER' being tattooed over her forehead in big orange letters. Her breathing grew rapid as she bent over to see if there was anything she could do. She pulled off his cap first, revealing a head of sandy but rather short hair,  with a tinge of red from his own blood at the front. Her hands became stained as she tore away his mask. His eyes were wide in shock and milky pale, the life had already left them and they were a hazel color. His lips were thin and a light moustache grew over them. The face was unfamiliar, it would have been worse if it was someone she had known but still she longed to know his name, his life. The bullet had rolled into a gutter and that was red too and shining in the mild sunlight. Someone would surely have heard the gun go off and they would be here any second. But that did not change anything. What had she done?

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

She was stuck. Over the long months of Summer vacation, as the news carried on about the regular hangings and the public continued with their daily lives through the scorching, August heat, she had spent her days curled up on the couch and filling her notebook with accounts of her daily lives. Sometimes, she would write for hours at a time, hopelessly dramatic tales of the time they went out and bought fruit or the day Ruby took her to the harbor, their lunch with Meg and what she had felt as they kissed for the first time. She knew that she went into too much detail, sometimes using four adjectives in a row or just writing a whole paragraph with just one long sentence but she did not care. If anyone ever read this in the future, she wanted them to feel exactly what she had felt as these events took place. Sometimes she got so carried away that her writing would just fall sideways off the neatly printed lines and create a mess of letters and full stops from which point she would cross it out and have to start again. And then there were the occasional drawings, scribbled in biro, from the strange new fruits they bought once every two weeks from detailed images of the entire city, not that you could see the details from the smudges her hand had caused. There was the carefully sketched out kiss drawing of their interlocking lips, she had been determined to draw the structure of their interlocking jaws as perfectly as possible. She had written a whole autobiography of herself at the beginning, at least a brief one anyway. Or her likes and dislikes, her family but yet, she could not think of one word to say about Ruby. At the moment, it seemed like Ruby was just a small factor in Anna's glamourous life, not that you could call it glamourous. A better word would be dramatic. And she had tried to think of something. She looked down at what she had written now.

_When I first met Ruby, she was living in a shelter in the center of Manhattan with her family, talkative Meg, kindly Lilith, despite the name and her younger brother Tom who I never really got to know well. At the time, she had blue hair._

Anna tore out the page with a sudden frustration and let out her anger as she tossed it in a scrunched up ball to the floor. It was all useless. She was delaying the actual description of the other girl, she had put more detail into describing her family who, though they seemed nice enough, she had not known for nearly as long. And even when she did get down to the actual Ruby parts, she just went on and on about her appearance, not her personality or anything else. But what words were there she could use.

_Ruby is brave. Ruby is smart. Ruby is energetic. Ruby is fun. She is humorous. She is beautiful. Free, sensitive, loving._

Too many words and impossible to pick just one or even two. She raised her pen and that was when she heard the footsteps, getting louder as they reached her door and then came to a halt. And then there was heavy knock. Anna's notebook fell shut. She was cautious. As she reached the wooden door, she rested her head against it, listening. There was some heavy breathing, someone in shock. She opened it and Ruby stumbled in. And her hands, they were red. It was blood. There was some on her shirt too in that same shade of deep scarlet and further down, a few splatters on her skirt but otherwise, the center of it was her fingers which were sticky and caked in the stuff. As far as she could see, there were no wounds.

"Ruby, you-what's happened?"

"It's not my blood." She was panic stricken. Her face was as white as a blank sheet of paper. With quivering hands, she slowly set an item down on the table while holding it as far away from her body as possible. And Anna stared at it in wonder, yet horror. It was a gun. But not a regular gun. After safety issues what must have been at least fifty years ago after too many shootings from people unauthorized to carry firearms so they came up with a new system. People must scan their finger along the side like with so many other things, so a DNA match could be found and then they can fire. But this, there was no scanner pad. It was small and black with a tiny trigger in the color silver but most likely too cheap to actually be made of it.

"I-I don't understand." She reached out with one long finger extended but Ruby slapped her hand away.

"It could go off." And then she placed her hands over her face. "I'm a murderer, Anna."

Anna gawped at her.

"I mean sure, I've stolen a few things in my time. I told you already but I never thought-Wow. Just...wow."

And Anna looked over at her, she wanted to know everything that had happened. Her tongue was dry so she had to hope that her face gave away her question.

"He cornered me on my way home. He had the gun. And he asked for my money. God, I'm such an idiot. I should have just given it to him but no, I had to go all warrior princess on his ass. And his gun fell. He wasn't going to shoot me. But I took that gun anyway and I fired it. I just...I never thought it would come to this. I can't live with the fact I have his blood on my hands. Literally."

Anna had no idea what to say. She considered patting her back but that's the kind of thing you do if you get bad exam results or don't get a job you wanted. Ruby was crying. For real. She had only seen her like this when talking about Bela. So she asked the sensible question.

"What did you do with the body?"

"What?"

"Did you hide the body?"

Ruby wiped a tear from under her eye. "Yes Anna. I went and his the body and cleaned up all the blood because the cops weren't already on their way there." It was the most sarcastic tone possible. "I had no time. I'm not a serial killer, I don't know how to clean up stuff like this. I just took the gun and ran."

"Is there any way they could have your DNA?"

"Oh shit."

"What? What's the matter?"

"How do you think I have all this blood on my hands? I touched the fucking body! They have my fucking DNA! They're going to come for us, both of us. They can math it to my work records, my criminal records, the game is up."

"So...so what do we do?"

"I don't even know. I-I think I'll shower, wash this blood off and relax! Maybe we'll sit down and watch some TV and talk about our fucking feelings!"

"Calm down."

"I am calm! OK, so I'm not so calm." She threw her now red cardigan to the floor. "Throw this away will you. Preferably in the trash at the back. We should probably go and see Charlie and Dorothy at some point."

"What about work tomorrow?"

"I'm not going to work. I expect it will be closed anyway, it happened so near the office block! Oh my God! Oh my God!" And then she began to pace up and down the apartment in some sort of mix between anger and despair.

"Ruby! Calm the Hell down!" Anna stood straight up and Ruby gaped.

"Wow, little miss dirty mouth."

"Shut up. Look, have a glass of water. Cool yourself down. Relax. Now I'm going to the bathroom. Give me the gun and stop acting like you're so scared it will go off again."

"You really know how to make a girl feel better," said Ruby. Anna handed her a glass of water which she sipped at. Her eyes were red now from crying and swollen. Anna then took a pair of rubber gloves which they normally used for washing. She gripped the gun between both of them, careful not to let her skin make any contact with it and to stay away from the trigger. She locked the bathroom door behind her. She stared at her own reflection. Had Ruby meant to murder that guy? Probably not, only the best of actors could fake that reaction. She put the weapon down just for a moment but so that the barrel was facing the wall and not her for fear of it hitting her instead. And she dunked cold water all down her face. And then she scrubbed away at the gun while still wearing the bright yellow gloves. The water was red, bright red, like cranberry juice and she just washed until it was once again clear. And then she moved the mirror to the side. About a month ago, she had found this hole in the wall and instead of fixing it, had widened it. It was where she kept the most precious drawings and passages from the notebook, where she could store them safely away without Ruby finding them. in fact, there were at least twenty already, which just to make room for more, she had to fold the others carefully over and squeeze them into corners. There was barely room for the gun but if she just pushed it in on its side, it worked.

And then she stared at herself once again, she pushed red hair back from her eyes. The police were coming for them. Sooner or later they would find them and when they did, her time was up.


	15. XV

 

 

 

 

 

 

> **Case Number: 7092 3345**
> 
> **Reporting Officer: Sergeant Peter Barker**
> 
> **Date: 28th September 2151**
> 
> **Body was found at approximately 21.40. Suspect had already left scene. Victim was lying in corner with bullet wound to head and blood on clothing. Is still unidentified but believed to be a male of twenty six and a known local criminal. Bullet from a 2078 0.72 revolver. DNA of suspect still being tested. Significant blood loss. It is believed that they were attacked by victim and shot him with his own gun.**
> 
> -Police Report on Dead body found in New York, 28th September 2151

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

She could not sleep. That was a first. Most nights she would be desperate not to sleep for the nightmares, she would do anything to occupy her mind, play games in her head, solve math problems but how ever hard she tried, it would always overcome her. And then, she was prone to the nightmares.

Ruby had worried. She had not actually said she was worried but it was all there, hidden between the lines and in her tone of voice too. After half an hour of rolling around, trying to make everything perfectly comfortable so that her hair fell across the pillow with not a strand in her eyes and so that her legs could remain stretched out without getting in the way of each other, she had gone into the bathroom and taken one of the sleeping pills Ruby had gotten her, just in case. They came in tiny, rubbery and clear capsules with white powder inside. Instead of wanting that bitter taste on her tongue, she unscrewed the capsule and tipped the fine powder down her throat. It too was bitter and she stared at the wall with the knowledge that behind it lurked a deadly weapon. And then he went back to bed. But the pill had not worked. She did not feel more tired, not even by a fraction and what was worse was the fear that the police would drag her out of here in her sleep and back to her parents. She would never see Ruby again!

It was with nimble fingers that she scratched away at the pages of her notebook as she sat hunched up on her mattress with the sheet held over her head. The light streaming in from the never-sleeping-city outside allowed her to just make out what she was doing.

The day had been as well spent as it could be, just as the night before had been. Ruby had bolted the door with everything-and she really did mean with everything-she could find lying around the house. She had linked together a set of bracelets she bought for herself although they would not be much use and attached them from the hook where their keys hung to the original bolt. And just like tonight, they failed to sleep. And Ruby kept her word, she did not go to work. They did not turn on the television, for what they said was because they might even be able to track them through that but really it was because neither of them wanted to know if they had identified the older girl's DNA yet.

"Hey, Anna. You awake?" The hiss came from the other side of the room.

Anna nodded and then, realizing Ruby could not seen her, said "yes" in a low whisper.

"Oh good. Now I know it's not just me who can't sleep."

Anna lifted the sheet from over her head and she could make out her figure in the blackness. She approached and then she felt the weight jolt the bed as she lowered herself to sit down beside her.

"You're scared aren't you?"

"How would you know?"

"Because I'm transferring my own feelings to you. God Anna!" She placed her arm around her shoulder and it was warm and comforting. "Tell you what, how about a game of twenty questions?"

"What, as in the guessing game?"

"No. This is the Masters, special edition. When you want to get to know somebody and even though I know more than any normal person should, I'm dying to find out more, I play this game with them. It's fun. Basically, we take it in turns to ask each other questions and then both of us have to answer. So make sure you don't come up with anything embarrassing. I'll start." She did not even bother to check if Anna wanted to play or not. She began. "Favorite sandwich filling?"

"Oh that's an easy one." And Anna actually thought this would be an alright talk for once without it getting too emotional or personal. "No. I take that back. This is really hard. Raspberry or apricot jelly? No wait. Chocolate spread." She breathed inwardly and could almost taste the smooth, sugary mixture on soft bread, on her tongue right that second. "Now you."

"Right. Uh, I'd say fries but I'm pretty sure you can't put fries in sandwiches."

"You can."

"You can? What? Is this reality? Am I in Heaven? I must be in Heaven."

"Why must you be in Heaven?"

"Because I've got a hot chick at my side who I don't deserve. Not one bit. And then there are fry sandwiches."

"Why don't you deserve me?"

"Well you're all innocent and sweet and then I'm a stealing, murdering..." She stopped herself. "I'm sorry."

"How can you be all casual about all this?"

"Anna, my life has been awful. The whole time, my life has been a waste. This, all I have here, I never believed in my wildest dreams I would get any of this, I never hoped for anything better. And that is why I can joke about it. That is why I don't care. Because I just can't. Can we move on please? Questions?"

"Alright. Hmmm." She tried to ignore the conversation they had just had. It turned out she had been wrong. "If you could change your name to anything, what would it be?"

"Well it would have to be something dramatic. And badass. Something that puts fear into the hearts of my enemies as I suck the blood from_" Anna shot her a look and she cut her sentence short. "Lady Donna Youngblood. No, update. _Countess_ Donna Youngblood. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Anna giggled.

"I have another idea. What do you think of Duchess Cornelia Darkholme. Or Darkholmes. Or maybe Jessamine, that's pretty too."

"I'd have to say, Emily."

"Emily? It's a bit plain, don't you think. Actually, it would suit you."

"Hey!" Anna punched her in the arm. "No. I-I like Emily. My grandma, her name was Emily too. I don't know that much about her. My mom would never tell me about her but from what I understand, she was inspirational. She changed a lot of lives."

"Feel free to take note of this stuff, girl. In your notebook, even."

"No, I'm good. I think I can remember."

"Onto me. Beliefs? And I know your religion but I need more. Come on, angels, demons, ghosts, aliens, God, the whole nine yards."

"I don't know. I mean, it's nice to think someone's listening into your prayers and just trying their hardest to make things better for you. Demons...in a metaphorical sense I guess. And the others, I just don't know."

"OK well ghosts. Interesting. I remember when I was really little, I was sure I was being haunted by the ghost of my hamster. He was stealing the cookies I stored under my bed. Now I think about it, it was probably toddler Meg. Twice as dangerous and ten times as loud. But she couldn't say much. As for aliens, well there must be something out there. There are tests that show there are other planets just like the Earth that could support life forms. But they're like a billion light years away. We'd never find them though. We'd die before we could get there."

"And angels?"

"You're the only angel I know."

"OK well I'm going to ask for your happiest memory." She ignored the rather sweet comment from Ruby. 

"Uhhh. That's tough. Uh I'm sorry, could you go first?"

Was it Anna's imagination or did she rub at her eye as she spoke?

"It was a few months ago, actually. I was with Jo. We were doing a school play, Alice in Wonderland. And we bot auditioned."

"And?"

"Jo was Alice of course. And I was surprised but I got to be the red Queen. They gave me the massivest heels. I guess it was because of the hair. My parents didn't come and see it. Not many parents could be bothered to even make the trip. But when I came on stage and took my bow, people actually cheered for me."

"Well look at you. Little actress."

Anna thought about Jo now. She would be back at school, maybe mourning the loss of a best friend. Then again, she could have just started hanging out with Lisa instead. They would all be sleeping in their quiet little dorms together or just worrying about their exams which would be coming on over the next two years.

"Alright, fine. I'm ready for you. Look, it was the last time I saw Bela. It wasn't special, not at all. We were just sitting on the roof near the shelter, just the two of us. Smoking. And we just talked. And she gripped my arm, really tightly. I remember thinking her nails were pretty sharp. I was noting everything. And she, well she told me she was going to go away, somewhere. She made me promise to stop smoking and I said yes. Guess I didn't keep to that promise at all. Then Meg came of course and ruined things and that was it."

Anna turned away and rested her head back down. "We can stop now if you want."

"No it's OK. It's fine. You-you go on with this. I'll ask one now. Opinions on penguins?"

"Out of all the questions you could have asked, opinions on penguins?"

"What? I like penguins. I mean, how can you not like them. They're adorable. Almost as adorable as miniature mongooses."

"Miniature mongooses? What are they?"

"They're like a crossover of meerkats and squirrels and they're tiny."

"I think the plural is mongoose?"

"Really? Shouldn't it be mongeese. Goose, geese. Moose, meese. Wow." She began to rock with laughter, it seemed uncontrollable, rolling out from deep in her throat and even Anna could not help joining in."

"Any big regrets?"

"Me? It would probably have to be not buying the new Late Night People album when I had the chance. I never got to hear that bonus track."

"It's funny how you can be all serious one second to being all like this."

"I am being serious. I didn't buy it, I bought a new t-shirt instead!"

"No I believe all that. I just think you must have _some_ bigger regrets than that."

"Let's hear yours."

"Not visiting my grandfather when he was sick. I mean, I did. I went to see him in the hospital. But the machine, it kept bleeping really fast every time I looked at him. I was eleven and he kept trying to take my hand and it looked like such a strain on him. And I ran out. And mom said it was scaring me too much to see him so I didn't go again. Two weeks later, he was gone."

"I'm sorry. What was he like?"

"He used to invite me around to his house all the time after school. He made me chocolate cake. He lived alone, I mentioned my grandma who died at least ten years before him. He used to watch cooking shows with me. He was a cook when he was younger and I guess my dad, he didn't really approve of either of his parents-in-law. Still, he could hardly stop me seeing them. He read to me as well from old books, really old books by someone...Charles someone I think. Whatever, he was sweet. I think I actually have a photo."

"You carry around photos with you?"

"Well yeah. It was in my purse when we left. Anyway, don't tell me you don't. I know you do. I've seen you looking at them."

Ruby grinned from ear to ear. "Don't miss a thing do you." She presented one from inside her pocket. It had been printed on the thinnest of papers and not in the best if qualities either. It was dusty too and there was a tiny little tear at the side. Ruby held it between her thumb and finger. "Taken back when I was fifteen. Didn't have the hair then, you see." And she pointed towards a strangely innocent-looking girl with hair as brown as Ruby's was now and an even wider smile. Anna spotted, Lilith, Meg and Tom and then one more person. He was a gaunt man with a slight beard and bones jutting out of his jaw, probably in his early twenties.

"Ooh, that's Al."

"You never told me what happened to him. Not properly."

"I feel like a bad person for saying this," Ruby sighed. "I don't miss him. I mean obviously I do, he was my brother. But I'm over it. He was violent and scary. He reminded me of my dad sometimes. He was what your stereotypical parents are terrified of getting. He wasn't a bad person. He was like me. He did what he could to survive. The truth is, I don't actually know what happened to him. He could be dead. I doubt it though. He's too strong for that. God's army couldn't take him down. He probably got in some kind of fight and is locked away in a prison cell."

"Well that's all well and good. Here's my photo." Anna glanced at it, swiftly, herself before Ruby tore it out of her hands. She could not help grinning at the cute, scrunched up face of seven-year-old Anna with big, hazel eyes, her forehead not properly grown into them and, for some reason, her hair curly.

"This is adorable. Really adorable. He looks so nice." And sure enough, her grandfather was smiling too as he steadied her on her weak, chubby legs. His hair had not even turned gray at that point. He looked young and healthy. Not so much the young actually but still, something changed in the last few years.

And then, a knock came at the door.

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

"Who do you think it is?" She could not see in the darkness but Anna's face had most likely gone as white as the sheet she covered herself with.

"I don't know. The cops?"

"What do we do?"

"Well I have to see who it is." She had lowered her voice to a whisper and so that it was barely audible and her footsteps were light so that she would not even make the floorboards creak. Her eyes darted to the clock on the wall. 2.56. No matter how many people said the city never slept, everyone should be home at this point. It had to be the cops. Getting them at a time when no one would notice. But then why were they knocking? Surely they would be trying to ram down the door. Maybe they did not want to alert the two girls. And then her gaze turned back to Anna.

"Get the gun at the ready." And Anna ran to the bathroom where Ruby knew she had hidden it although exactly where, she had no idea. The knocking began again, louder and just a fraction faster, as if to show whoever was there was desperate. Ruby picked up a knife from the counter. It glinted and shone and she ran her middle finger down it, testing just how sharp it was. Then she undid all the bolts before opening it just a fraction. 

 "Rita." And there, she saw her boss, fatigued and out of breath, her hair in a usual bun, loose to her shoulders. Well this was certainly a strange time for her to come calling and asking about her career.

"Yeah I'm sorry. I know I missed work today-yesterday. I'm sorry, it's been busy. And I was worried because_"

"Rita, stop. I need you to skip all this. I'm not here talking to you about your work. I'm here on urgent business."

Ruby had no idea what to do. She knew she should not let her in. For all she knew, she could be an undercover agent. But she had some kind of authority that made her anyway.

"Come on in." She opened it the full way and placed the knife back down before she could see it. She suddenly became aware of how little she was wearing and how messy the apartment was. Anna was luckily still hiding. "Yeah I know it's not much and...can I get you a drink?"

"Nothing thank you." She set herself down at the table.

"Mrs Baurese."

"I already said. This isn't about business. You can call me Eve here."

"Eve. What is this about?" And having a first name made her seem more like a person. More like a person with a life, with a history, maybe with a family.

"Rita. Should I even be calling you that? Tell me where Anna is."

Ruby's jaw dropped open in alarm. Why had she trusted her? Her hand was already reaching for the knife but her arm would not extend enough.

"It's alright. It's alright. I'm not here to harm either of you. Anna!" She began to call out. "Anna, you can come out!"

The door creaked and Anna emerged with the gun held steadily between her fingers.

"Put that down, it's not a toy."

"I think I know how to use it. And I could shoot you right now." There was fear streaked across Anna's face but also a sense of determinedness.

"Why can't either of you understand. Anna, Ruby. I'm not going to report you. I don't work for them. I'm just someone who stumbled upon the truth."

Anna looked her up and down. "Ruby, what do you think?"

"Let her talk," Ruby replied.

Anna kept the weapon at her side though as she took the third chair around the table. "Alright but I'm keeping this."

"Mrs Bau- Eve. How did you find out about us?"

"It's been all over the news you know. The innocent girl, kidnapped by the dangerous  _roughie."_

"Hey, I'm not_"

"No one is."

"You really believe that load of shit?"

"No I don't believe that load of...shit."

"Oh. Well everyone else seems to."

"Guess I'm just an exception. I knew your mom, Ruby."

"You knew my mom?"

"Yeah. Funny isn't it, how things work. I wasn't always this high and mighty you know. I used to live on layer 4. In fact, me and her, five minute walk from each other. Her first boyfriend, he's my husband. I didn't know her well. I saw her once or twice. She was eighteen or nineteen. They were trying to stay friends."

"Did it work out?"

Eve shut her eyes as she laughed. "No. They had some sort of fall out. A few years later. Me and him were still just dating. Seriously though. Living in the same house. Sort of like you two,"

"You-you know?" Anna spoke this time.

"Oh don't worry. I'm more let's say...tolerant than others. You want to know how I know all about you two, I expect."

"Well obviously we do," Ruby answered.

"When I was growing up, there was layer 5. But there were so few people living there, it was practically deserted. And all those who did live there had homes of their own, no matter how small. That was one of the twenty second century goals. And for the first thirty and a bit years, they succeeded. But my parents were in bad situations, you might say. They did sometimes tell me that we might not have our house forever. It was unlikely but true. And when I got through my childhood, without it ever happening, I still felt that I owed all those it had happened to something. I began to study in politics and I was doing charity work at every weekend. It was where I met my husband in fact. We married, we had three children all very quickly. It was when there were the campaigns that more children were needed after that awful epidemic that wiped out so many people. I'm not sure if you would know about it, it happened far before the two of you were born. My eldest was six when the riots happened. I'm not sure I should be calling them riots."

"You were there?"

"Right down the street. I had heard rumors of protests and I was ready to help. I had been supporting so many at the time and I thought I might as well go and join in. And they really weren't riots. They passed by my house and they had signs and everything. And then the rangers came out."

"Who?"

"It was what they used to call the cops who worked specifically for the government. I believe there are some still around today although nowhere near as many. They attacked, they were knocking them all over and they were fighting back. My husband was out and I told my daughter to stay in the house, looking after my brothers. I tried to restrain some people. Already half of them had been carted away for doing no damage whatsoever. They all got the death penalty a few months ago, I heard." She wiped a tear from her eye. "My children came running out after me. They got pushed in, by a ranger I think. They fell. It was hours before everyone had been cleared away. And when they got them out of there, well...it was too late. They'd been suffocated. I saw their bodies as they wheeled them away. All fragile and bruised, like little dolls. And it was all my fault."

"Your husband?" Anna questioned.

"Alcohol was the only solution for him. We didn't want to try for more children, we couldn't. We barely talk nowadays. We live apart but it's not official."

"But if all those people saw, why didn't they report it?"

"They tried. I tried. I went to the police, multiple times. A mother has to defend her children.They called me mad. The footage was messed around with so much it looked like the protesters were doing all the violence. To the government, all the homeless are one big hive mind. And they're the scapegoat for everything that ever goes wrong. I don't know why. I don't know much about it at all. It's all what I could piece together. I read about Anna in the news. Of course they had no pictures or even a name of Ruby. But I recognized you, you looked like your mother. I looked into your backgrounds. For that, I have to apologize but whoever you went to didn't cover up their tracks. Now what I'm worried about asking is where you got that gun. The body_"

"Yeah. Well I kind of shot him." Ruby tried to say it in the most innocent way possible."

"You? I thought maybe they planted it on you. I assumed this was another one of the government scams. Blaming you for everything. I can't do anything. I might be in charge of an office but the company's huge. I couldn't help you with anything. Tell you what. Stop coming to work, Ruby. I'll say you got ill or something. I can send you a cheque. Five hundred credits."

"Oh no you don't have to_"

"But you need something to keep you girls going. Five hundred it is. I wish there was more but a murder case, I can't help with. I'm really sorry. I have to leave. They could be tracking me right now."

Ruby knew she had to be polite. She got up, opened the door for her and Eve straightened out her hair, not tying it up but leaving it so it fell on her shoulders. She was older than Ruby had thought, she realized, more like her own mother's age but that face, it seemed almost preserved in youth. She could see the sorrow now in her eyes. She was about to shut the door behind her when she twisted her head around.

"Oh and by the way, girls. If you wanted to keep a gun with you, I would load it first."


	16. XVI

 

 

 

 

 

> **New Laws**
> 
> **"After the recent decrease in the population, it has been calculated that since 2100, it has fallen in the USA by approximately 23% (source: National Census), due to the epidemic that we have fought against all over the world. It is today that we introduce a new law:**
> 
> **All women will be expected to give birth to at least two children if able. The latest you can begin trying is at the age of 25 and tests are available at any clinic now. This law will apply t anyone unless without special, official permission. Please note that this law is not permanent and will probably be removed within the next ten to twenty years."**
> 
> **-** News Announcement, 20th September 2125

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

"What the Hell is all this?" Ruby said. She rubbed her eyes as she spoke and they were sore and red. Just like Anna, sleep had not been the easiest thing to come to her at this time. She could argue she had more to worry about. She was the one who had shot the poor guy. If she could say poor about him. She was the one with the blood on her hands and her prints all over the trigger. She was the one who would face the death sentence. But then at least it would all be over. Anna would surely be sent back to her parents. She would not be able to love - not real love. And she would blame herself for her girlfriend's death in the same way Ruby had with Bela.

"This whole thing stank from the very beginning! Like I didn't get why they were making such a big deal over all this but...I mean wow."

"You're saying 'wow' a lot recently," offered Anna. Ruby noted that her hand was resting face down beside the pile of credits. She was grateful they had these. She was grateful from Eve and what Eve had done for them was good, she had meant well on their behalf but really, any person could have been following her, any number of security cameras could have watched her. If she had found them so easily then these so called rangers could as well. She had basically led them right to their most wanted. And they would want them found. Eve had said that just to tell anyone the truth, they would dismiss you as crazy but surely there would be some others out there, they could bond with and maybe they could gather a group. That would surely be solid proof. So they had to be captured before they could tell anyone else.

"We should let Charlie and Dorothy know this," Anna remarked. So she had had the exact same idea. Yes, they should tell them. Charlie could hack the network, find out if all this really was true, find out if blaming Ruby for kidnapping was just trying to get the public to turn against the citizens of layer 5.

"Yeah sure." She crossed her arms across her chest.

"Is something wrong, Ruby?"

"No! I'm part of some fucking plan that doesn't even make any fucking sense but otherwise, I'm fine!"

"You promised you'd stop being so rude."

"Yeah well I hate to tell you this Anna but I've made a lot of promises in my time. Like I'd stop smoking. But do you see me doing that? I might as well have one now."

"You'll set off the fire alarm."

"Who cares? They're coming for us anyway, it doesn't matter how long it takes for them to find us, it's still gonna happen at some point. Look, I know I've told you this a million times already. I expect you're bored of hearing this by now. But I had a shitty life. And I was willing to live that ignorant, shitty little life and die a shitty, ignorant death. I never wanted to get involved in any of this. I'd use some stupid excuse like 'I fell in love' but the truth is I'm not happy to be having this. I don't want this, never did, never will. So I suggest we spend our last hours well. Stuff ourselves with food, fries and chocolate cake, all you can eat. We listen to our favorite songs, reread our favorite books, maybe you'll even let me have a last smoke if I open the window."

One time, when they used to have the elementary school in the shelter, the volunteering teacher had put a display up on the incredibly small holo screen. The first image had been a plate, swamped with toast, eggs, bacon, what you would associate with being the best and most filling breakfast foods. As you would expect, everyone was confused. There were a few whispers that they were trying to teach them about healthy eating when it was near impossible for any of them to get this much in one day. Then, it moved on to the next photo, a large steak with two chicken wings next to it and some type of pie at the side. There were assortments of other odd meals, people getting spoiled, one with fries, prawns and strawberries on top, one which looked like chunks of lobster and bread, one who had a simple bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and finally, one of those plates you find in cafeterias with the little cut out holes for a cup, a main meal and a dessert, except this one was completely empty. The teacher had then asked them to raise their hands. Some guessed these were the meals of children whose parents gave them whatever they wanted. Others thought very stupidly thought these were typical meals for a person on each layer. This all lead to verbal abuse to the upper layers. One small girl even suggested they were pregnancy cravings with the last being a girl who both her and her baby died from her not feeding herself enough. She thought this was going to be a lesson on why they should use protection. The teacher finally revealed that these were the last meals of prison inmates on death row, all recorded in the twentieth century when they had the death penalty just as they were bringing it back then. That class turned out to be rather depressing, the moral being that life is short and for them, even shorter so they might as well enjoy it in whatever way they could.

This was how she felt now.

She was not sure quite what she was doing. She found a small slab of chocolate cake, stuffed away at the back of the refrigerator and she laid it out. It was melting, the brown crumbs had sprinkled out around it and some landed on the floor. She had a desire to wolf it all down right now for though she had eaten plenty, in times like this - not that she had had many times like this - she tended to feel hungry. But she had to save this. She had to savor every last bite, every last gulp of the fizzy drinks she got them out in bottles. And she began to make french fries too, a big portion of them. It really was a dream meal and they really were dining like those non-existent kids whose parents let them eat whatever they wanted without caring. And then she switched on some music. It was a CD she had bought for herself a while back, Siren's Call. She had hoped they would be a little like Black Rose as they dressed just like them and nobody around here seemed to have heard of them. She inserted the tiny chip into the machine and immediately the loud music started up, the bass guitar strumming away with the drums picking up and absolutely no special electronic effects in the background. Real music. She turned it up so it was close to ear splitting but she did not give a fuck who could here. Anna had started off confused but she seemed to be going along with it. In fact, she started it. She got up, she twisted, she shook her scarlet hair from side to side and waved her arms around like some demonic windmill. Yes, Ruby liked that description. She herself, swayed her hips from side to side. It was simple to wait for the intro to get going and she caught Anna staring at her from behind. The lead singer kicked up and she began headbanging, stomping up and down. Anna grabbed her shoulders.

"What the Hell are you doing?"

"Conga line. Well, conga line with just two people."

Ruby shrugged. And they began to move around the apartment like some miniature train and Anna took one hand off her shoulder to continue with the demented airplane thing.

"Woo!" Ruby screamed and this was the most fun she had ever had in her life. If they were preparing for the end, this was the best way to do it, dancing like she just did care. And then the song ended. There was a moment of silence, in which Ruby expected other residents to be pounding on their door, begging them to turn the music off and go to bed. But there was nothing. It was like the entire building was dead. And then a string instrument began to play - a violin or something similar - and the next song began. It was a ballad, something about lost love which you would not even need to listen to the lyrics to understand. Almost every band had one of these, no matter what genre they specialised in. Anna put her hands on Ruby's shoulders and looked her deep in the eye.

"What are you doing this time?"

"Just go with it."

Ruby sighed. And she did. She quickly snaked her arms around Anna's waist, just before the chorus started and they began to sway from side to side. And their feet were moving and Anna was taking the lead because while her dance moves to the other song had been complete crap, she knew this waltz well. She gripped Ruby's hand and extended both their arms out and they shuffled towards the wall until they were about to collide with it before switching arms and moving in the other direction. They continued this, quite a few times and then it finished. Ruby turned off the speaker.

"Isn't this amazing?" she asked and she was feeling some type of exhilaration, what she assumed people felt when they were drunk. "Peace and quiet. Like time has stopped so we can have one last special night together."

"I never knew you were so poetic."

"Fuck off. It's true. I would expect Angela and Derek to be moaning to us about how Riley and Aaron need to sleep, they have school tomorrow, blah blah blah. But it's all so perfect. Hey look. Midnight feast is ready." She rushed to the counter and carefully poured the fries onto a plate and squirting a dollop of ketchup on the side. Then she brought it to the table and stuffed a big fistful in her mouth.

"Mmmm. How did I not know about this before you came along? It's like deep fried crack. Forget Chinese takeaways, there should be french fry takeaways. And they should have competitions to see who makes the best fries. I'd have to be the judge." She twisted the lid off one fizzy drink bottle and a torrent of it landed all down her t-shirt.

"Anna!" she yelled. "What did you do?"

Anna retreated back in her chair. "I thought it would be f-funny if I shook the bottle."

Ruby glared at her. She leaned over the table until they were almost eye to eye and then she burst out laughing. "I'm just kidding. Great idea." She filled up her glass and then tossed the contents over Anna's head.

"Alright stop stop." Her hands raised in the air. "I surrender."

"Good. Now can we get on with the meal."

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

Ruby had finally slowed down, at least as much as she could - though still taking what you might call large handfuls, she chewed at a less rapid pace before swallowing. Anna cut herself a nice, big slice of the cake and and she cut off the edges first with a fork, nibbling on it like some sort of noble. It made sense. That was how she felt right now. 

"Hey, you know what's missing?" Ruby raced straight back to the refrigerator and came back holding a new bottle, this one made of glass. "To get the party started."

"No. No, Ruby."

"Why? You're having trouble sleeping. It's white wine anyway. It's not like it's gonna kill you."

Anna stood up just as she finished her slice of cake but already hungering for a second. It had been so good, melting in her mouth with that sweet, sweet flavor. "Where did you even get that, for God's sake. Your ID says you're nineteen."

"I've been saving it all for a special occasion. Come on, surely you've had a sip at, I don't know, some fancy dinner party."

"Well yeah but that's not the_" She was interrupted at the groans Ruby made as she tried to unscrew the top with her bare hands. She grunted and then it came loose, bouncing on the floor once before coming to rest at Anna's feet.

"It's a sign. It's beckoning you in."

"You're turning me into a real bad girl, Ruby."

Ruby took a large swig straight out of the bottle and then raised the bottle above her head in a mock-drunk way. "I've never been drunk before!" she shouted.

"Well you clearly haven't. It's already taking effect. Here, let me." They had no shot glasses, no wine glasses either and ended up settling for mugs. She only gave them a little at first until Ruby gestured for more and tried to wrench the bottle from her hand, splattering the table. "Alright, give me a chance," she hissed. She took her own mug and sipped at it like it really were just tea or coffee. And unlike the cake and the french fries, it was not good. It was bitter, strong, but somehow, it was also refreshing and she finished what she had. She licked the rest of the chocolate off her finger. Was it just her imagination or was Ruby swaying, if only slightly. She lay down on the couch, stretching her body completely out and her head flopped slightly forwards.

"You OK?"

"Of course I am. You think a couple of glasses of wine can damage this?" She patted the end of the sofa and in doing so, curled herself up into a ball. Anna sighed and collapsed down beside her.

"In the shelter_"

"I'm not in the mood for hearing any more sad stories."

"No, this is interesting. Back at the shelter, we sometimes had books and papers from colleges because as hard as it might be to believe, some of them went to college. Anyway, I found a study on romance."

"Seems like you're a scientific drunk," teased Anna. Anna was teasing Ruby, not the other way around. This was odd.

"I told you, I'm not drunk. Can I get through an awesome story without you ruining it? Anyway, so I had nothing better to do. So I read it. There was a section on the kiss. There's always that build up to the kiss. In every movie or TV show, they have the build up. It's a complete mystery, viewers have no idea what's going to happen. The reason it's so slow - so people have time to make their minds up about what they want to happen next, if this is the right decision or not. Now there are a number of possibilities. Sometimes they laugh and say stuff like 'like that could ever happen.' Sometimes one of them pushes the other away, all like 'I have a boyfriend' or 'it wouldn't be fair on him.' Sometimes they really do kiss and then pull away a few seconds later, apologizing. Classic example of creating sexual tension. Along with saying 'prove it.' I think I'm mostly referring to media with this. There's the classic kiss. They kiss for a good while and then start dating. The sexual kiss where they start ripping each others' clothes off and have some form of a one night stand. One time, as implausible as this might seem, on some old show, they closed their eyes before and ended up bumping noses so hard that the man ended up with a nosebleed. But the truth is, you don't know if anything's truly there until you have one of those build ups."

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

Ruby beamed. Her head twisted slightly to the left and Anna's mirrored it, leaning to the right. And there were to be no nose collisions. Both kept their eyes fixed on each other. When their lips were millimeters apart, Anna's hand came in between them.

"I have a boyfriend." For a moment, Ruby looked shocked. And then, Anna began to giggle. "I'm kidding." Both of them got back into place and this time, they really did finish the kiss. There was no breaking apart after a few moments and apologizing, no ripping each others' clothes off. It was well and truly, the classic kiss. When they did part, Ruby spoke first.

"There is something there."

Anna nodded. "Well yeah, I think both of us had come to that conclusion."

"Hey, no sassing me, no sarcasm. Only I'm allowed to do that."

"Since when? Is there a book somewhere? Could you confirm that for me?"

"I really have rubbed off on you."

"Or maybe I just changed myself."

"I like my theory better." And then, Ruby paused. "I love you, Anna. I've told you before but I mean it this time. I thought that Bela was the only one that I could love. I thought that you were, I don't know. Forget I even brought that up. But you can love more than one. And I was lucky enough to love more than one. I was lucky enough to get, not one soulmate, but two in my shitty, little life." As she spoke, she twined her littlest finger around Anna's. Anna glanced down at the gesture. She looked in her eyes and she believed every word. She was not lying, no one could fake this. "I love you too, Ruby. And I think this might just be the alcohol talking but as our last treat of the night, fancy watching some late night TV?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Her arm came across Anna's shoulder as she switched the flatscreen on, speaking her channel command, clearly so that the reader could process it. And they watched. They watched the boring hosts who even though they smiled with wide grins at the camera, were all secretly hoping it would end as soon as possible so they could go home for twenty two hours. Turns out the alcohol did have an effect on them or at least on Anna. It knocked her out within less than an hour and even Ruby fell into what could be mistaken as sleep. It was a shame too because they missed the urgent news report on them discovering the identity of the 'messy murderer' who the hunt for had finished after just one day. They had been identified as Ruby Masters.


	17. XVII

> **"Ow, my leg. Alright, I've reached some kind of area sloping uphill. I think I must be almost out. Thank God. Yes, my smartphone's working again. That is good news. Erm, OK, almost out now. Ow. I'm sorry, I just fell over again. These damn rocks. And I am-what the Hell? I seem to be in some sort of room. It uh, it looks like someone's been living here for a while. Yes, there's a bed and a table. And there's food. And wait a second, somebody's coming I_"**
> 
> -Dictaphone recording made by Elliot Robinson while lost in set of caves, August 2137

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

She brought the blade closer to her wrist until the point rested on her skin, cold as ice. She had to do this. It was death, either way and at least, like this, fewer people would be hurt in the crossfire. Alright so maybe she would not die with the other option but she would get something far worse.

They knew her name. They knew it was her, responsible for the dead body, responsible for the disappearance of shy, innocent Anna, though by now she had figured out that none of this was about that.

_You're thinking this through too much. Just get on with it._

The voice in her head was right. Best to get it done before she changed her mind. And she sliced down. Her arm stung, the pain was unbearable, probably one of the worst things she had ever felt. She felt like screaming but she bit down hard on her tongue and gritted her teeth, carrying on. Blood was spattering from the wound to the floor. This was seriously dangerous. She did not know much about the human anatomy. Science had never been one of her best subjects. What if she cut a vein? But she did not. Finally, metal scratched against metal. She had found the correct spot exactly. How lucky she was that their chips were not planted to deep under the flesh. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as she drew the knife right around the edges. The thing was tiny. It was impossible to believe that all that data about them was stored in there. Well not data about her, exactly but still enough that they could find them.

It came away in her fingers, wet with the sticky red liquid, and she tossed it to the floor. She stared at it in anguish for a few seconds and then she drove her heel down on it. She stomped and stomped again until it was broken into the tiniest of pieces. No more of them tracking her.

Anna could be safe now. She would have to. Because she was doing this for Anna after all. Not just Bela. Anna could share out the money with the Masters. Ruby knew her mother. She would take Anna in. They could all go and start again, be happy for the first time in forever. But Anna had to know all of this first. And there was only one way to tell her. It was the cruelest, meanest way, and she had hoped no one would ever do this to her again as it had hurt so much, the first time. She tucked Anna's gun away into her bag. The knife too. Who cares if they were found, she was a wanted criminal anyway. She stuffed in matches too and an old box of fries as a snack as well as all the money she had earned from her job as a secretary. She hesitated with the pack of cigarettes, her hand hovering over the rucksack but then she through them back in the cupboard. And then she removed two scraps of paper from her pocket. The first was a crisp photo of Bela, smiling and laughing with the wind in her hair. This specific copy, she had kept safe, never showing it to anyone. For a moment, she was entranced by her mischievous but dead, green eyes, then she placed it down on the work surface. Then she took out the second scrap of paper. She turned it over to where it was completely blank and began to write, using Anna's own pen.

_Dear Anna,_

_I am sorry I have to do this to you. I wish there were another way but there is not any other way. You would only try to stop me. I'm trying to make this the least romantic, sickly thing I can while still expressing my feelings towards you. Let me begin. When I first met Bela, I thought there was no one else in the world quite like her. And I was right. Because you are the complete opposite of her. The two of you can't have been more different. But you mean the same to me. I love you, I love both of you the same as I love my mom, my sister and my brother. All of you have a place in my heart. Metaphorically of course. But you have to understand that you changed me. You made me realize that there is a reason for why I am here. My life is worth something. It has a purpose other than working hard to get a pay until I die. And I'm pretty sure I rubbed off a bit on you too. Once you get this, I want you to leave this godforsaken place. Find my family. Tell them I love them. You'll get the money soon and you can start again. I just hope that you can one day make it up with your family._

_See you in Hell,_

_Ruby x_

That would have to do. The last bit was a bit morbid but surely if Anna still believed in that stuff then that was where they were both going. She left it lying face up so Anna would see the note and then she made for the door. For what she had left was that same advert Anna had found Ruby with for selling her life.

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

"Ruby? Ruby?" Anna shook her hair out as her fingers fumbled on the couch cushions. She lifted herself upwards. God, her head hurt, throbbed badly. She had only had one or two glasses of the stuff. Her vision was fuzzy but only a little. What time was it? There was only a small amount of sunlight so she would say around five or six in the morning.

"Ruby, are you awake?" she yawned and stretched out her arms. Her hair was slightly curling and falling in her eyes. As she pushed it back, she saw it. It was red and dotted on the floor. For a moment, she thought that Ruby had spilled some of the wine but no, it was too thick to be that. And there was a lot of it. She leapt up and stumbled just a bit before regaining her balance. She knelt down beside it and dipped just one finger in. It was warm. This happened recently. As she brought her slender finger backwards with a look of what she imagined was pure horror on her face and the widest of eyes, her finger caught on something. There were fragments of metal, all around, the tiniest, millimeters wide. Oh no. Ruby had cut out her tracking chip.

"Ruby!" she yelled but she was already gone, there was no point but she yelled. "Ruby!" There was still no reply. Next she noticed the slips of paper laid out for her on the table. There was a photo of a girl first. She was pretty and had cropped hair, dyed neon pink. Anna immediately guessed who she was. She was already dreading the truth. It was there, nagging away in the back of her head. But she had to have proof first. She read the second note and there were tears in her eyes, every word. Ruby was gone. She held the note against her chest. The last thing she had from her. She was gone. They would never kiss, never have a fight again. Never be able to start a family like they had talked about. She would never have to listen her way through a rant about how fantastic french fries were again. They would never play another game, never go shopping, never have emotional discussions. Never have sex. As if that last one mattered too much. Her voice was fading, a sign of acceptance.

She flipped the paper over but she already knew what Ruby was going to do.

**How Far Would You Go To Save Your Family?**

She did not have to read anymore. She knew the rest. Ruby was selling her life, just as she was going to nearly four months before. Her life essence would go into health, her perfectly functioning organs would go to others in need. It was selfish but Anna almost wished they would just wait so she could have her back.

This was it. This was the end.

Where were the cries? Was it only her dying within?

Ruby had had no one else. Not anyone close enough to her. Not anyone she had seen in over three months.

She ripped the paper up then. She kept the photo of Bela. It would be disrespectful not to. But the letter, she tore into shreds and then she tore those into shreds until they were just little white beams of dust, floating to the floor. She swung out with her arm, it collided with a wall. It was probably bruised but she started to scream. She picked up a plate and through it and it smashed in pieces. She yelled and sobbed and mutters of "Ruby, Ruby," could just be made out.

And then came the knock at the door. Followed by a shout. "Open this door ir we will knock it down! Open this door and come out with your hands up!"

Anna gasped. They were here for her or at least for Ruby. But they would still take her, whether the real one they wanted was here or not. She rushed to the bathroom. It would take them a while to get that door down. She swung the mirror to the side and revealed the hole in the wall. She pulled out her notebook and it landed on the tiled floor, clattering a bit and bouncing once, then coming to a rest. The gun was gone. Of course it was. Ruby would have taken it, wouldn't she have. She dashed back out to the kitchen but all the sharp knives that could actually do any harm were gone, too. The door was giving away. They were bashing at it hard. It was lucky they did not have a battering ram. There was one option left. She took a few hairpins and knotted her hair up tightly on her head. And then she placed the brown wig over the top. SHe had not worn it for a while now but she always made sure it was neat. It was now she could appreciate just how realistic it was.

And then she just stood there, stock still. A finger reached up and brushed away a final tear. Her nail was sharp. Like Ruby had said Bela's had been when she last saw her. And how Ruby had advised her to keep hers in a fight. She shut her eyes, she took a deep breath. And then, they came in. Every word they screamed at her blurred together. The beating of her heart was too loud, she could feel the rush of blood through her eardrums. She felt a hand grab her arm and she lashed out. She was imagining her dad, Hester, giving them what she owed them. The self defence Ruby had taught. She kicked and her body came into contact with soft flesh. Maybe it was the same person or maybe a different person. But she was not going down without a fight. She scratched at their faces, she clawed and tore at their hair and she thrashed them away from her until she was being held down on the table. Something cold was bound around her wrists. Handcuffs. A man was standing over her in police uniform. He was tall, muscled and large; well built. His nose was twisted to the side from a bad injury which could easily have been fixed. It was grotesque but she expected he had kept it so he could appear more frightening. Scars lined his tanned cheeks and he sneered as she rested heavy arms on his hips. He had other men with him, each pointing various weapons at her.

"Ruby Masters?"

She nodded as much as she could under their grip. She lowered her voice, trying to imitate the other girl's voice as well as she could. "Yes."

A man whispered in the leader's ear but it was not done quietly and her, along with everyone else in the room, could make out what he was saying: "She doesn't have blue hair."

She laughed though her lip was swollen from their fists. "So I changed my fucking appearance? Sue me." It came out lisped and she hoped they would not notice her voice shaking. Ruby's voice came in her head now, the real Ruby. "You're the second best Ruby Masters who ever lived." And she smiled.

"You are under arrest," the man said.

"Great. Heard prison food is better than what they have here," she said. It was the type of thing Ruby would do, lighten the mood, she would say.

"Witty, this one is," the man continued, addressing the other officers this time. "You're coming with us."

____________________

They drove her for a while. For a long while. They stuffed her away in the back of a van, in some kind of cage, a large version of what you might keep a dog in on its way to the pound. It was dark, she blinded by the blackness and had no idea where they were going. Sometimes she would feel a bump in the road and topple slightly to the side. And the whole time, she was trying to picture Ruby for she would have to be able to mimic her perfectly to be able to fool them. She wanted to shed a tear for her lost girlfriend, already on her way to her grave but she could not. Ruby would not want her to mourn.

And then, they arrived. She knew because they came to a sharp halt, one too sudden and quick to be them stuck in traffic plus, there had not been any of that during the whole journey. Sure enough, a few minutes later, they were hauling her out of her cage like she really was a dog, and pushing her forwards.

The building was surrounded by a fence. And not a chainmail fence like in that one prison movie Ruby had shown her with all the criminals in their orange suits, doing press ups on the tarmac. This must have been fifty feet of steel, completely opaque and thick with the sun glinting off the edge and reflecting in her eyes and the spires of the old fashioned roof, just visible over the top. There was a single entrance. Two men stood guard at the front, each with automatic rifles slung over their broad shoulders. They remained emotionless as she shuffled past and one of the men carrying her pressed his finger over a reader. A door gently creaked open, a door concealed in the wall and made of the same steel in the same color as the rest. It would be near impossible to find it. They dragged her through another series of doors. There was no lobby for visitors. It was showing that the people in here could not have visitors. They were too dangerous. Was Ruby dangerous? Was  _she_ dangerous? And then came the prisoners. Except they were not prisoners. They were wild animals. And they seemed to be roaming free. On looking at the cells with walls in between them, there seemed to be no door, no bars, nothing. Not all seemed so wild but a bald headed man with especially sharp teeth which he bared at her, raced towards her. She brought her hand up to her face as far as she could in the handcuffs but suddenly he stopped. His hands rested on a space of what looked like air. It was sort of fuzzy though. A blue ring grew around his hands and she saw he was missing a finger. Very stereotypical. But that did not matter. They were trapped within forcefields. This was a maximum security prison. And she was inside it.

Most of the prisoners they passed were male but she saw the occasional girl. One, with dark skin and hair cut to just below her ears, followed her with only her eyes. Her hands were clenched tightly together, every part of her was rigid and still, apart from those eyes. It was eery. She was not wearing orange but black which Anna supposed was better but was also another sign that this really was no ordinary jail.

Another inmate caught her eye as they reached the second floor, travelling upwards in an elevator. He was at the very end of the hallway and skinny. His jaw stuck out and it was bruised badly. He had stubble on his chin and bloodshot eyes and he grinned at her, showing off a row of uneven teeth with one missing at the edge. He must have been in his thirties though this place had aged him. He seemed almost familiar. Her head twisted backwards as they pulled her away from him and they exchanged glances before she was shoved into an empty cell. They attached her handcuffs to another set of chains which were on the wall and put her feet in cuffs too. The ground was cold stone and they began to pull of her shoes, leaving her shivering. They began to remove her clothes and she felt slight embarrassment but they neither commented, nor stared. It was their job. They fixed her up in a set of the uniforms all the other prisoners were wearing. One of the, had brought in a chair and they forced her down into it. There was a crowd of people, surrounding her, taking swabs of saliva from inside her mouth, taking fake chunks of her hair, shining torches in her eyes and drawing tape measures up against her. The DNA tests to compare her to what they had of Ruby would come back negative. But she had a few hours while they collected all their data together. And then came the questions.

"Name?" She could not place who had asked this. But the answer was easy and they already knew it too.

"Ruby Genevieve Masters," she coughed and not laughing at how Ruby had joked about her fancy middle name.

"Date of birth?" questioned another.

"Thirty first March. Twenty one, thirty four." Another she knew the answer to.

"Sexual orientation." For a moment, Anna's mind went blank as she just looked at them like some kind of zombie. But they were relentless. "Sexual orientation?" they repeated.

"Uh p-pansexual," she stammered. That was what Ruby had said about herself, wasn't it?

"Are you now, or have you ever been pregnant?"

"No."

"Have you ever been involved with any resistance or terrorist groups?"

"No." They were not asking about Anna Milton, herself, the girl who had gone missing. This confirmed her suspicions. They did not even care about that. They drilled on and on with some routine questions and finally came to asking if she confessed to the murder. And this was a hard one. Because she knew that yes, Ruby had killed the man. But would Ruby confess anyway? Finally, she chose what to say.

"No."

And then, they left her alone.

____________________

It was quite a few hours before the guards vanished altogether. There were still one or two patrolling the halls but at the other end. It was lights out. No one had come to ask more questions although she suspected they would soon. She only had a little time left before they discovered her true identity and dragged her back to her parents. And a little time before the real Ruby was gone.

Half way through the day, they had brought her a meal. She was wrong. Prison food was nowhere near as good as what they had had at home. It was some kind of gray slop, gruel probably, with a slice of particularly hard bread and a cup of lukewarm water. Just what you would expect here. It was funny, her and Ruby had been stuffing themselves before and in the process, making her appetite grow and now, she was starving.

The footsteps of the guard died away. There were howls, from this floor and the floors above and below, begging to be released, pleading that they had done nothing wrong. Plus, there was the snoring from those who had already to drifted to sleep.

She caught the boy in the opposite cell, the boy who she had recognized earlier, smiling at her. But she did not smile back.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I'm trying to be nice." His voice was scary, lisped a bit like hers, either due to his bruises or just naturally like that. Every word seemed sarcastic like he was taunting her.

"Yeah well stop." She tried to look away from him but he continued to stare. "Right. Seriously, dude?" She added the dude as it sounded just like what Ruby would say.

"I'm sorry. You remind me a little of my sister. She was all tough and dangerous looking too. She tried so hard to be a thug and she thought she was one. She thought she was a punk. She went and got a ton of piercings and dyed her hair a crazy color. She would be about your age now."

"Yeah. I'm not like this all the time," she said. "I'm just a bit annoyed right now. And depressed," she added.

"Ooh. I'm sorry. What are you in for?"

"Murder," she said, matter-of-factly. "And you?"

"Joining a 'terrorist group," he said with strong emphasis on the terrorist.

She could not believe they were having this conversation so casually. She was cautious of him, he seemed to be admiring her. "Look, quit with the staring. It's getting on my nerves."

"I can't help it though with a beautiful thing like you."

"You're lucky we're locked up or I'd be punching you in the face."

"Who taught you those skills, huh?"

She hesitated, wondering what his reaction would be. "My girlfriend."

"OK." He did not comment. "So what's your name?"

"Anna Milton," she said before she could stop herself. Luckily, none of the guards heard.

"Well if you're going to be so formal and say surnames. Hi Anna Milton. I'm Al. Al Masters."


	18. XVIII

> **To: BATT.RS <Alex>**
> 
> **From: ANSS.RS**
> 
> **Subject: Project AN**
> 
> **Message: 1st January 2152**
> 
> -?

 

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

"Al? So your full name is Alastair." Yes, it had to be him. It was where she recognized him from. The photo Ruby had shown her. But she had said he was twenty one-twenty two now, probably. He looked at least ten years older.

He nodded. "Uh huh. Why?"

"And did you uh, was your sister's name Ruby?"

"How did you know that?"

She paused and took a deep breath. "OK, I'm not sure how you are going to react to this. It depends if you're the kind of protective older brother. She was my girlfriend."

Anna was not sure what she expected his reaction to be but it was far from what actually happened. He burst out laughing, at first quietly until it grew hysterical and he had to clamp his hand over his mouth. "Well, my sister has a type."

"A type?"

"Like that Sam Winchester guy. Short. Skinny, pale, green eyes. Tries too hard to impress people." Of course, he would not have been around to meet Bela, Ruby said that she came after him. Anna was really starting to not like Alastair at all. "Wait a second. Did you say 'was'? Did she break up with you?"

"Uh sort of."

"Sort of? What does that mean?

"Look, this may be hard to hear but_"

"Try me."

Anna took a deep breath before delivering the news. "She's going to die."

His mouth widened just slightly. "What?"

"She left me a note. She's selling her life. So she can provide money for  _your_ family which  _you_ left behind!" She calmed herself down. She should not have gotten so made at him. She looked left and right but still, no guards were coming. She turned back to him. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, yeah." His expression was completely neutral. "I haven't seen the kid in nearly a year, anyway."

Alright, that was the last straw. She hated him. She struggled to change to subject. "So you said you were working for a terrorist group. What do you mean by that? How did you get locked up in the first place?"

"I expect you know all about me. Heard Ruby's side of the story, have you? It all started four years ago, I think. I was on my way home with some cash I got for Ruby and the little ones' dinner."

"The little ones? Tom and Meg?"

"Yeah but I expect they're not so little anymore."

"Well they're still little just...more grown up, I suppose."

"Well anyway, these layer three dicks came and started beating me up. There were three of them and they were calling me a dirty, roughie thief, scum, all kinds of shit like that. And I fought back. I'd been practising my moves and I even taught Ruby some. And I knocked them all out."

"You? _You_  knocked them out?"

"Impressed, eh? Wouldn't think I had it in my, would you? But the resistance were watching. They see everything. And they asked me if I wanted to work with them. What did Ruby tell you about the riots?"

"She said she was a baby and doesn't really remember. But I know that it wasn't their fault. I know...someone who was there." She thought of that woman who had visited them who Ruby worked for. What was her name? Eve.

"Yeah. Well. I was four. And I saw it. And I wondered. And I asked myself all these questions about what was going on there. I didn't believe it was their fault. I knew that something was being hidden from us. And I hated those shits who they've decided, guess what, they run the country. I wanted revenge for all they put us through. So I agreed. And I worked for them for years. At the resistance, we were planning on destroying them for good."

"Do you have to keep saying 'the resistance?' Don't they have another name?"

"I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to use it. You're not a member."

"Right OK. And what was the plan you were going to use to destroy them?"

He shrugged and smirked. "Can't tell you that either."

"Oh for God's sake, I am not a child!" she shout whispered.

"Technically you are. At least I'm guessing you are. What are you, fifteen?"

"Sixteen!"

"See. I say that nobody's an adult until they can legally drink."

She folded her arms. "And you got caught then?"

"Raiding the government archives, no less. I was one of their best, you know. Always gave me the big leagues like that."

"And yet here you are in a prison cell."

"Hey. Stop sassing me."

Anna began to chuckle. It was funny. Funny in a tragic way like everything about this man. Though he was arrogant, unlikable, he shared blood, he shared genes, he shared parents with Ruby and she could almost see her in him or rather him in her.

"Why are you laughing?"

"It's...never mind. You got an escape plan, genius?"

"As a matter of fact, yes I have,"

"Really because as far as I can tell, you're still trapped in here."

"Well what I meant to say is I did have a plan. The resistance have a group of undercover guys. Languages, accents, can pretend to be anyone. One time we had a class with one of them, this old man who turned out to be a thirty-something-year-old woman. They stationed one of them in every prison in the occasion of one of us getting locked away. But no one knows this prison it seems. When I arrived, there was no one here to let me out and I tried every code word on every guard which they all just laughed at. I think they knew."

"So how do we get out then?" said Anna, eager to have some idea.

"We don't." Alastair flopped onto his hard bed.

"What, we just stay here and rot?"

"Pretty much."

"No but there must be some way!" Anna stomped her foot, angrily.

"Calm down, hot head. The guards will hear you. No one escapes. We're in a maximum security prison. No one shares cells, there are no cellmates. When they have more prisoners, they build more cells or if that's too hard, they move out some of the other prisoners."

"I thought you said no one escapes."

"No one does escape. But they can get out. No one knows where they go. But frankly, I prefer the former. We don't get together to go outside and form gangs, we don't sit in a canteen together and eat our shit. Apart from you I can't talk to anyone here. Some of the most dangerous criminals in America are locked away in here and if they got together, the results could be_"

"Catastrophic."

"You know a lot of big words."

"Don't patronize me. I just can't believe everyone gives up so easily."

"Bit we have to give up. Don't you see, hot head? We're worthless. The government knows so. I'm scum. Complete scum. You too. And at one point, we just have enough of the abuse or teasing or whatever crap we have to live through. And we want it to be over. We see an open window and we could easily jump, there's an old belt and a light hanging from a ceiling, you could sting yourself up in minutes."

"I know how that feels," Anna murmured and she found her mind turning to Hester, all she had put her through. But this time, a new memory. One of the smaller ones, one you tend to forget, came instead. She was in the hospital, waking up once they had got enough of the X out of her bloodstream to get her conscious again. It was frightening to realize that that horrible stuff was still in her veins and she cursed herself under her breath. And she saw her mom in their watching her and through the glass, the pristine hospital waiting room, Jo sitting and trying to peer through but not being able to see well enough to know what was going on. Cas sitting beside her, looking absolutely petrified. And then, she saw a flash of blonde hair. It was Hester. And she was crying for the damage she had done. After the accident, the suicide attempt she should say, they had not let her see that girl. They were worried what she would do to her. But she was in as much despair as everyone else. She raced forwards as Anna lifted her head but Jo held her back. And she could make out Jo's lips forming quickly as if she were shouting.

"And everyone has felt that," Al continued. "Don't deny it, you have too. At some moment, someone has made you feel that way. It's impossible for it not to happen. Some just have enough misery to actually go ahead with it."

_Like Ruby._

 

"But Alastair. When I was little, when my mom thought my dad wasn't listening, she told me that my life, like everyone else's on the planet, is priceless. Nothing can be exchanged for it, it can't be sold and there is a purpose to it. It can't be bought, it has no price. Nothing is worth losing you. You think that by not being there, things are going to be better. They won't. Think how much pain you would cause."

"Save the lecture. I've heard it a billion times."

"This isn't a lecture. I'm just wondering what the Hell is wrong with you Masters'?"

"You have things different to us, Milton. At least you did have."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't give me that. I worked with the resistance. Everything about you screams runaway from rich home. Your accent, the way you hold yourself. Let me guess, daddy didn't approve of - how shall I put this? - your chosen  _lifestyle._ "

Anna sighed though she knew it was true. "Look, I know how all of you feel. Because, you're right, in my lifetime, someone put me down. I wanted to die. And I almost did. But when someone dies, it's like a bomb going off. It damages more than one person. Your sister, her first girlfriend, she lost her. You wouldn't know her, she came after you left. And Ruby was devastated. It was one of the reasons why she wants to...sell her life. To be with her or something like that."

"Well I'd hardly say I'd take things to my sister's level."

"You must want to be out of here. You must want to see your mom again or, Jesus Christ, you must want to help me save your sister."

"You're so determined. Normally I'd try and flirt with you, say how I like it but that would be a little weird, seeing as how you and my sister...you know. But you have to be realistic. There is _no_ getting out."

Anna turned away from him, angrily and kicked at the wall. She then began to scrape at it with her nail.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," he called. "Two feet of steel beyond that wall, beyond every wall. You'll tear your fingers off, trying to get through there. You're stuck with me."

Anna bit her lip. She moved her hand downwards and scraped at the floor instead. If only they had left a spoon or something. That would make this just a little easier. "I'm just surprised that the force fields keeping us in here aren't sound proof."

"What?"

"Well we're talking to each other across the whole," Anna said as i it were obvious. "So they're not soundproof."

"No no. The cells always have been soundproof. I've tried calling the guards, talking to other people but they can never here. Something's wrong."

"And you only realized that just now?"

"It's not my fault."

"It actually is. I'm not the one who's been trapped here for ten months! How was I meant to know that the cells were soundproof? I think you'll find that you are the one who screwed_"

"Shhh." He held a finger to his lips and peered around the side of the cell. Anna tried to follow him but it was hard to see and her had accidentally collided with the force field a few times.

"What can you see?"

"Shh," he whispered again.

"Sorry." She lowered her voice. Suddenly a figure emerged out of nowhere and stood right in front of her, split only by the force field. They were wearing the uniform of the other prison guards, black and heaving, obscuring anything about their height or weight that might let her recognize them. They wore a mask too, a sort of helmet that came from the nape of their neck, right up to the forehead and closing over the mouth and nose so that all she could see was two inches of pale skin and a pair of green eyes. Their voice was muffled by this mask of course and came out deep and almost electronic like they wore some device to disguise it.

"Anna Milton?"

Anna did not say anything.

"Anna Milton? Please confirm your identity."

"My name is Ruby Masters_"

"We know who you really are." She could just make out some annoyance in the fake voice. "We don't have time. The guards will wake up soon."

"Wake up?"

"They have been drugged. So have the other prisoners. We are breaking you out." And then they removed a glove. Their fingers were slender and long and each had some sort of pad on the tips which they pressed against the reader. Fake fingerprints, she realized. There was a flash of blue as the force field came down.

"Please confirm your identity," said the not-really-a-guard.

"I am Anna Milton," she stammered.

The person handed her a gun, bulky. They then began to explain. "It is loaded with fifty tranquilizer bullets. Not all the guards here are drugged so you must take out as many as you can. None will die," they added, probably because they saw the look of horror on her face. "You head out once they all all unconscious. The front door is unlocked. Be swift. After that you will be free. I am sure you know what to do next." They then proceeded with unlocking Alastair's cell before turning to walk to the other end of the hallway.

"Wait!" Anna shouted. "Who are you?"

"Me? Let's just say I'm a friend." She was sure they were smiling under that mask. And then, they vanished into darkness.

"Well that was weird," retorted Anna.

"They are part of the resistance," said Al.

"What?"

"You can tell. I was taught to identify another one of us on the battlefield. And they're a soldier."

"But it doesn't make sense why they'd want to break me out. You obviously were one of them but what about me?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're important to them. You heard the man though. We have to leave." He held his weapon, just like Anna's to his chest and they took quiet steps towards the elevator. The doors were already open even though she had seen the guards using keys.

"Well what do you know? They've got everything ready for us." They stepped inside and Alastair pushed the button for the ground floor.

It felt faster on the way down. Because it was working with gravity, that is what her logical mind said but in her writer's mind, she was thinking that it must have more weight as her stomach was dropping at the same time.

As the doors parted, guards surrounded them at all angles. It was obvious that they had been expecting them.

"Put your hands up," they said, just like your stereotypical prison guards and Anna felt like a giant fist was now squeezing her stomach. She was tempted to do so and one hand slid a few centimeters into the air when Al whispered to her.

"Follow my lead, " he said. And then he fired. That was the first shot. On guard collapsed to the ground. There were a few seconds when everyone just stopped like broken clockwork in which the mental link telling them to attack spread around, and then their were return fires. One struck Anna's leg. And it hurt like she had just been punched. But no damage was done. A tiny pellet fell and rolled along the floor before stopping. Whoever that stranger was from the resistance had somehow managed to change their bullets to these harmless things. The guards seemed confused enough when she did not go down and she fired her first tranquilizer. And another guard fell. She had struck them right in the shoulder. Three more and three more were down. Her aim was perfect and Alastair was doing just as well. Soon enough, they were standing in a room of unconscious guards. The prisoners on this floor were howling right now in side their cells or they were at least trying to but these force fields really were sound proof and Anna could only see their mouths parting in an 'o' shape. They wanted to be let out. But they could not. Some of these people were real live criminals who with no thanks could murder their rescuers on the spot. But Anna felt empathy for them. Alastair seemed to know what she was thinking.

"No."

"But they can't be all bad. Maybe if we search the records and find the ones who aren't guilty_"

"Everyone here is guilty, including us. I don't know why the resistance wants to save you but they do and you have to be grateful, hot head, and do as they told us which is get the fuck out of here before they wake up!" He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "I'm sorry. But you can't save everybody, Milton. That's something you have to learn. You're like one of those hippy girls who won't be grateful for the food they have and shun away all meat and hate everyone who eats it."

Anna laughed. "I'm not a vegetarian but you have a pretty bad definition of it."

"Come on, let's just get out of here." They reached the front entrance, the real front entrance. The gate was closed but not locked and all it took to open was a push from Anna. The sunlight shone through. It was like when you go to see a movie during the day, your eyes get so adjusted the dark and you expect it to be night time outside. And it was night time or nine 'o' clock, anyway, but since it was the beginning of fall, the days were still long and the sunlight was a shock to their eyes. More to Al than her, he had been here far longer and he held a hand to shade himself.

And then, they were out.


	19. XIX

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

Al put his finger up against the neck of the guard slumped on the ground. His head was bruised and had formed a lump almost as big as an egg, just above his hairline. He nodded as he drew his finger away and then spoke in a hushed voice.

"Alive. Both of them. But out cold. Guess they wanted to make things easier for us." His legs straightened out as he rose from the ground and they headed through the door which had luckily been left open for them.

"This sucks as a prison break," Al said. Anna just nodded. And then they stopped. It was the exact same road they had stopped at on her way in and she now took the time to notice how unlike it was to any other road she had ever seen. To begin with, apart from the prison, there were no other buildings, not anywhere. Just trees. Trees and fields of crispy golden grass, preparing for the harvest before the Winter. And there was no magnetic rail, stretching down the middle to guide the vehicles along and prevent crashes. However, their were lines. They were painted on in white, short little stripes exactly down the middle, probably dividing it to show which side you were supposed to drive on. And it only went on for a while before just stopping, being cut short about one hundred yards from where they stood. How on Earth did they manage to get here? That was the question bouncing around Anna;s head.

"Where are we?" She was talking to herself, thinking out loud but what with Alastair being the only other person out there, he immediately answered as best as he could.

"No idea. It looks kinda old."

"Like in history textbooks." She stared off into the distance ad could almost imagine people working in those fields, chopping at the grass with scythes and loaded them onto trucks instead of all the wheat being grown in glass greenhouses with all those chemicals pumped into them like they were nowadays. "Let's think," Anna continued. "If I wanted to build a secret prison which even the smartest terrorist group in the country didn't know about, where would I put it? How long would you say the drive was?"

"Well I don't know. I could hardly check the time. They deactivated my ID chip, yours too, I expect."

Anna glanced down at her wrist, automatically at the one wearing her MEDI-band first. It was strange, they should have noticed it, been able to realize she was not Ruby. And then she turned to look at the other wrist where just a few months ago, Crowley had replaced her own chip with a brand new one. Sure enough, the red light normally flickering through the first layer of her skin was gone.

"I'm bad at guessing time. I'd say I must have been in that van for two or three hours and we were travelling pretty slowly. But that's all I can give you." She hung her head, slightly. "Sorry I couldn't be more help."

He did not reply. He looked to his left, to his right, spun around. It was like a wild animal caught in headlights in the center of a road.

"If only we had a compass. Where could they take us travelling at a speed of 'pretty slowly' for two of three hours." His tone gave away that he was annoyed.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know. Sure, they took every precaution they could in that prison to make sure nobody escaped. They'll be onto us in minutes. But the fucking resistance could have at least given us some directions, Or maybe this is fun for them, like hunters setting animals free from their cages, only to chase them outside and cut them apart before roasting them."

"Or maybe they wanted to see if you could figure it out yourself, see if you actually deserve your place." Anna sat herself down. God, these prison uniforms were so thin. No chance of you getting hot and sweaty in these, even in the middle of Summer. She felt for her hair and her brown wig had fallen off, probably in the small fight with the guards to the entrance. Al had not commented on it, at all.

"Well if this is some sort of test, then I can't do it. We have no clue which direction to go in, we have no map, we have no- wait, where are you going?"

Anna was already taking off, through the field. "I'm trying to get us away from here."

"Slow down, hot head. You can't just walk off in whatever direction you feel like."

"Watch me. We're bound to come to a place eventually, whether it's New York or not."

"And when we get there? We're in prison uniforms, you're a skinny teenager, it probably looks like I kidnapped you. We have no money, inactive chips, what are we supposed to do? Live off the streets?"

"It's not like you haven't done it before."

"I had help then, more help than you're gonna be to me."

"Charming." Anna carried on, slinging her gun over one shoulder.

"They have fast cars and vans. They'll catch up to us."

"Then at least we'll have put up a good fight."

"You're very determined to find my sister, aren't you?"

"Hey, at least I know I tried. At least I know I give a damn," she spat, cruelly. "Then she stopped. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

"It's OK. You're right."

"OK. So we're good?"

"Yeah, sure."

Anna sat herself down, cross-legged in the grass. "Time for me to get you a simple geography lesson. It's the Fall now. In the Fall, the Sun sets in the West. It rises in the East. That means, we have to watch tomorrow morning." At this point, the sun had already set and a dark cloud was covering the moon. "Once we know that, we travel North. That's always the safest option."

"And what do we do next?"

Anna sighed. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, we should probably sleep."

**____________________**

They moved a good distance from the prison until they could see it no more on the horizon. It turned out Alastair had learned a couple of survival skills which he then demonstrated. He built a fire out of what small amount of wood and twigs he could find scattered around and rubbed them together until sparks flew. It was good to have some warmth. Anna stared, fascinated. No one used their hands or even matches anymore, what with all the digital lighters around, so much less of a fire hazard, they said. He made sure to do it on a dry patch, too. Anna found herself the softest patch of grass possible and lay face up upon it. The ground itched at her back. All kinds of small but not very harmful creatures must be lurking in there, hoping for a taste of young blood. She reached down to try and rub the back of her arm. The palm of her hand came away cold.

"Al. There's something under me."

He began to laugh. "You should choose your wording carefully before speaking, hot head. What have you found? Anything useful to us at all?"

"I'm not sure." Anna sat up and felt around beneath her. "It feels metal. And it's thin. I'm sorry, it's hard to see in this light." She pushed the grass aside. It was indeed metal and thin. A ladder? There was a thinner pieces of the same metal, running horizontally along the middle of it, like a rung. And at the other end, there was another longer one.

"It seems to go on quite far." As she felt along it, there were more rungs. "It's a rail. A train track."

"Oh my God."

"What is it?"

"The outlands."

"What?"

"Really? You moan I don't know my Geography when you don't even know New York's history?"

"They didn't like teaching it to us at school."

"Guess our different societies had different priorities. The city used to take up far more space you know. It wasn't always so tall. Sure they had the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building but it was only one layer. Before the turn of the century, they figured out that instead of building out, they could start building up, they were destroying the environment. So they took a great chunk from the outside away and split the city into the layers. And they were going to make those bits they took away into wildlife reserves and homes for the 'less fortunate'. It was all a good idea. But something happened. No one knows really what but long story short, the builders who came out here to remove the train tracks and subways were getting killed. Literally ripped apart. And no one knew how. Whatever was doing it was careful though, left no tracks or prints, like on some detective drama. Humans fear what they don't know. So they built walls around their city. The only way out is through the harbor or across the bridge,. You must have seen the scaffolding around the bridge. What did you think it was for, decoration?"

"I never really thought about it."

"Jesus, you're stupid."

"Stop it. Stop being so rude to me!"

"Cool it, hot head. You understand you're temper's how you got your nickname. That and your hair. Your wig's come off. Thought I should point out." He smiled.

"Wait a second. So they built a prison where they could be ripped apart?"

"Well they couldn't. It's secure, remember? However, two criminals, set free by a terrorist group and trying to find their way home could be very easily."

A look of horror struck Anna's face.

"Cool it. We just follow the tracks. All of them lead to the city eventually."

"And how do we get in? Through the walls?"

"I've heard of underground passages. It must be how they drove us in in the first place. We'd better leave now. Before the monsters get us." At that point, he made a vicious grab for Anna's shoulder so that she flinch quite violently."

She punched him. "Don't scare me like that."

"Aw. Afraid of werewolves, vampires and demons, are you?"

She rolled her eyes at him and folded her arms. "You're the only demon around here." She began to stride boldly away.

"What, and you're little miss angelic, are you?" he called after her. Then he whistled. "Wow."

____________________

Anna didn't like long walks. As a kid, their mom sometimes tried to take them on picnics in central park. She had visited the zoo, eaten and played in the little children's playground but when it came to having a nice afternoon walk, she just could not. Running was not a strong point of hers either. At school, she always came last, causing much laughter from Hester and her friends. But when someone you love's life is in the balance, you can put all that aside.

She would exaggerate and say they walked all night long, that they really did get to watch the sun both rise and set, that she looked at the stars and somehow related them to Ruby but there were no stars. It was not that it was too early for the stars to be out, on the contrary, by the time they reached the barricades, it must have been midnight. It would have been far faster travelling by the train, that was for sure. But they had no trains now so they would just have to do the best they could.

They faced no werewolves or vampires or demons so that soon, Anna was beginning to wonder if Al had made the whole story up. He had seemed pretty solemn. But finally, they did reach it. And it was big. Two hundred or three hundred feet but that did not stop you being able to see the city over the top. It was alive, noise from audible through the walls, no matter how strong or thick. There was no way they could climb it but the underground tunnels were not exactly hard to find. The grass still grew, right up to its base and it was longer here but even more dead and brown like the pollution of the city was flooding out.

Al felt along the base.

"The tracks stop here so I'd say the entrance would be...here." He plucked a good chunk of grass from the ground so that it just revealed the tiniest gap.

"That? That's the secret entrance? I can't fit through there. I don't see how a train could. Maybe one for mice."

"They would have closed it off. Couldn't have any creepy things like me getting through now could they?" He was joking on about what Anna had said about him earlier. He began to smash at the edges with his fist then gritted his teeth.

"Ah. That hurts."

"You think you can reopen the gap with your bare hands? Not likely," Anna said. Her hands skirmished around in the mud until they found a stone. It was smooth, mostly, but with one sharp and rough edge. She snatched it up. "Here, use this."

"Thanks." He began to knock it so that it echoed off the wall. He was putting all his weight into each attempt. Anna felt like trying to help but he seemed to want to do this all on his own so she just waited. Finally, satisfied, he drew away, rubbing his palms together to clean the dust from them. The hole was wider now, not much wider, but enough that they would be able to crawl through without hitting their heads.

"Ladies first." He extended an arm in the direction of the darkness. Anna straightened out her clothes and let her arms fall to her sides. She lay down on the floor in front of it. It smelled funny. She could already feel the chill, reaching out. There was no heating in there, there was no point when nobody was using it. She could not see far, only a few feet and even that was hard to make out.

"Don't worry," Al reassured her. "It opens up a little way along. Now will you go already?"

Anna's stomach muscles tightened as she cramped herself in. Her elbows were digging into her chest and her head was bent right over. Great for finding her way through. She clawed out with one hand and this was the way she dragged herself along. She could hear Al's rapid breathing behind her which at least let her know he was not leaving her to do this, herself. Yes, the odor was getting stronger and she longed to cover her nose. Eventually she just settled for only breathing with her mouth. She had to imagine she had a cold. Her feet ached. They had given her slipper-type shoes at the prison but they could obviously not stand hikes and were now in shreds. Her toes were blistered, swollen and red and bitten away and covered in cuts and_

_Quit complaining, Anna. You have an important job here._

She nodded to herself and continued. It began to slope downwards. They were going into the subway. Or the sewers. She found she could raise her head a little more now, until she could finally stand up. Their secret passage had led them to tunnel. It seemed like a tunnel anyway although it stopped before they could reach the other end with another blocked off wall. And this one was really blocked off, no tiny secret tunnels to escape through. This was the end.

"Great," she muttered.

"What's wrong?"

"In case you haven't noticed, we're trapped. And underground as well. Frankly, I prefer a dark, wet prison. At least we'd have food."

"We're under the city, aren't we? You really think there's no way out?" He pointed upwards to what until just then Anna had thought was a dead ceiling light. It was a cover. The type you would see leading into sewers all over the city and sometimes workers would be climbing down into them. There was no light at the other end so it obviously did not lead straight to ground level but it was their only chance of escape. Al hoisted her up, first giving her a leg up and then helping her by letting her put one foot on his shoulder as she pushed the cover open and dragged herself through. While the stench had been pretty awful below, here, the source of it was revealed. They really were in the sewers. And she was standing in a mess of water and mud and God knows what else what, next to a set of pipes. She lifted Al up, he did most of the work himself but she helped him so he was sure he would not fall.

"Gross. I'm standing in shit," he said.

She laughed.

"You are too," he pointed out.

"Yeah but do you see me fussing? Come on, there's a ladder over there." She made sure that she was standing very steadily on top of the pipe and that her damp feet would not make her slip. Good to get out of here as soon as possible. The ladder led up to another drain cover and this time, she really could see light on the other side. It was not daylight, all electronic, you could tell by how unnatural the glow was but it was good enough for her. She assigned herself to climbing first and Al made sure he was right behind her once again. And then they were standing in the street. Had they been in layers 1, 2 or 3, they would be attracting attention. The type of attention that comes with cops chasing after you. But this place was very identifiable as layer 5. And to all the drunks wandering about and the people locking up their little washing businesses, they were just a pair of teenagers, messing around. They ignored them and carried on with their business.

"Oh my God," said Anna. "We did it! We actually did it."

"Let's go have a party. What will the cards say? Congratulations on committing serious crimes, being thrown into prison and escaping?"

"They'll be time for that later," Anna dismissed, making it clear that she had understood his sarcasm. What was that inside her? Exhilaration. "We need to find a friend of mine. She's a computer hacker. She could track Ruby for us."

"Is she hot?"

"I'm going to pretend you didn't ask that." Anna began to leave him as she made her way to the stairs between layer 5 and 4."

"Well you're not much of a wing woman," he said as he caught up to her.

"But I am _not_ your wing woman. I'm not anything to you."

"I'm not sure about that. You're my sister's ex."

"Yeah but that's it. And I told you, she didn't break up with me."

"You can get pretty angry. You know, I think we're going to be good friends."

She coughed. "I would never be friends with a person as uncaring, arrogant, self-absorbed as you! I'm just helping you to see if you have any care in your heart at all for your family who think you're dead. How do I get through the barriers without a chip?"

"You need my help for some things. And it's really not that hard." He pushed her to the side and began to press a few buttons on the machine, some with the tips of his fingers, so lightly, she was wondering if it made a different at all. They swung open. "You want to know how to do that, you're gonna have to say that we can be friends."

"A friend wouldn't blackmail me."

He stood and grinned at her, mischievously. Then he held out a hand for her to shake.

"Fine. Friends." And with reluctance, she firmly shook his hand. "Now show me."

"All in good time my _friend."_

She walked through the gates and began to trace her way back to Charlie's house. It was a while since she had been here and it was hard to remember every single route but eventually, they found their way to it. It was the one that looked like a coffee shop. All the lights were out in the top windows but there was one where she remembered the kitchen being. Alright, this was her last hope. It had not quite sunk in yet, what was happening but she probably had to accept that their was not much she could do.

_Let her go._

No, she could not.

She rapped three times on the door. There was a little commotion inside, the sound of a few things being put away, carelessly, and then, the other red headed girl was leaning on the door frame.

"Anna, looking good. Loving the piercings." Then her eyes met Al's. "Who's he? And wh-where's Ruby?"

"Uh, we're gonna have to talk inside, Charlie. This is...this is important."

"Sure. I'll make some coffee." The words were cheerful but the tone was not. Even someone as happy and lucky as Charlie Bradbury could not stay positive forever. And she took them in, turning on the machine which began making a whirring noise. The table had various little devices, old watches and things that resembled smashed open smartphones but thicker and wider with just one single, circular button under the screen.

"So how are things with you and Dorothy?" Anna asked.

"Anna, we're here to talk about you, not me. But just, FYI, we decided it was good to spend some time apart. I'm seeing a new girl and, yeah, it's pretty cool. So now tell me, how's life for you?"

"Uh, it's Ruby. She left-she...OK, this is Alastair. She's Ruby's older brother."

Al nodded at Charlie. "Hey."

"Yeah well, Ruby had a girlfriend before me, Bela, and Bela, a while back, she sold her life. You know like_"

"Yeah, I've heard of it. And I hate to ask but did Ruby..." She trailed off.

Anna gave a solemn nod. "I knew she was thinking of it a while back. She said she was doing it to help her family and I made her promise not to. And she kept talking about her shitty life."

"Language, Anna."

"OK and she kept just turning it down. It seemed like a joke, you know how morbid Ruby is. And then she left."

"Oh. Right." Charlie didn't seem sure what to say so she just hung her head.

"We need your help. You can hack the network, right? We need you to hack everything you can, find her, stop her. Please."

"Whoa, easy there. I would but hacking doesn't work like that. You can't just instantly find a person and a way to contact them, that could take days. Do you have her chip number?"

"Uh yeah, about that. She kind of smashed it. She doesn't have one."

"Wait, let me get this straight. You want me to find a person but we don't know where they are, what name they're using and they don't have an ID chip?"

"Pretty much."

"I'll do what I can. Do you have anything you might have of Ruby's? Something she might have touched or that would have a little of her DNA on or something?"

 "Ummmm." Anna thought for a second and her hands found their way to where pockets would have been if the prison uniforms had pockets. She realized she was still dressed like this. She had had the photo of Bela and Ruby's note in her own clothes but all she had had been confiscated, taken away by the guards when she arrived and they had asked her all those stupid questions. "No sorry. I-" She stopped as she found a scrap of paper, tucked securely into the waistband of her trousers so it would not fall out. It was the picture of Bela. What if the one stranger, the stranger who called themself 'her friend' had sneaked it in there as they were letting her out of the cell. "I have this. It's a photo of Bela. Ruby left it for me."

"We can work with this. I'm guessing it has Ruby's prints and maybe I can do a face search for this girl. Maybe Ruby went to the same place as her which at least narrows down the search."

"Give me that," said Alastair who up until then had been silent save for the ravenous slurping of his coffee which he had put at least four spoonfuls of sugar into. He did not wait for Charlie to give it to him though and snatched it from her hands before surveying it himself. "This isn't Bela."

"You know her?"

"She worked with the resistance. I saw her around a couple of times. Most of the boys were drooling all over her. She was a skilled fighter I knew. Pretty high up in the business. They trusted her with everything. But I didn't know her as Bela. They called her Alex. No surnames and we were all just given code names but most were complete crap so I always assumed she was Alexandra or Alexia or something."

"Oh my God." Anna stood up. "This is-this is big. This is important. Charlie, you need to work on finding Ruby as quickly as possible. Al." Her eyes caught his as she paced the room. "What else do you know about her? This Alex?"

"They didn't tell us much. But they had a big plan for the government. It was a massive secret but sometimes I heard about it in whispers. You know how secrets are. They never stay secret. I was curious. And I wanted to know more. So I sneaked in the back of one of the meetings. And Alex, they were giving her a job. On a holo-screen, there was a massive picture of some kind of computer chip, like an ID chip but it was funnily shaped and there were all these buttons on it. And it was slimmer. I overheard them say it was dangerous and other shit and the only way to stop it doing whatever damage it's supposed to do is keeping it away from oxygen. Under the skin. I don't know what they were using it for. But it can be removed and planted under somebody else's skin in seconds and they were entrusting Alex...Bela, whatever you want to call her, to keep it safe."

"So what," Charlie said. "She thought the cops were coming on to her so she faked her death?"

"No. They could still always find her. They'd be following where her body might be stored. She would have to give it to someone else. Someone they'd never suspect and-no. No. No no no."

"What is it?"

"Ruby. She said the last time she saw Bela, she gripped her arm and made her promise all these dying wishes and she said that it had hurt and she thought that her nails were digging into her arm. But they weren't. Bela gave her this chip. Ruby's carrying some deadly weapon and she's about to give herself up!"

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

A single magnatram bound for a set of houses in the North of the city. Forty six passengers. It should have been forty five. There were only forty five seats, not including those for the driver and the people bringing around little trays with snacks and drinks. Everyone had booked in advance. Except the stowaway. You could hardly call the security to a high standard. The back door with a few pieces of luggage on had not even been locked and the barriers were easily vaultable. So now, here she was. A brown haired and once again homeless girl, wearing a band t-shirt, a nose piercing and a bandage around the wrist where her ID chip should have been with just a small backpack hung loosely over one shoulder.

She had forgotten about trying to stay hidden and not draw attention to herself because she was exactly the image of the girl they were looking for. Ruby Masters: thug, street thief, psychopathic killer with a taste in punk fashion and music.

Not a cigarette in days. And the air felt good on her lungs. At least she could have that experience before she died. Yes, she could say it. She was going to die. Death was coming her way. And she was not scared. She could even laugh about it, knowing that Anna and Meg and Tom and her mom would be OK.

"Bela, I'm coming to you," she whispered to no one in particular. She knew how crazy she sounded, she had started believing there was an afterlife. She had never thought she could be one of those sensible people. Turns out she was wrong.

And then the phone began to ring. Up until then, she had not even known a phone was in there but it was hanging from the wall, probably for whatever douche was lounging around in here to communicate with the driver. It was old fashioned, hanging on a hook and big enough to stretch from your forehead to your chin. She should not answer but somehow she felt tempted to pick it up.

"Hello."

"Ruby you-Are you alright?"

"Anna? How did you find me?"

"It doesn't matter. Ruby, I know what you're going to do and I have to stop you."

"There's nothing you can say or do that will stop me. I get that you're going to be sad. But I'm not the type of person you should be hanging around with. Go off. Find your brother. Become a journalist. And find the right girl or boy or other gender unspecified."

Anna's breathing came from the other end of the phone. And then she heard her high pitched voice again. "Bela. She didn't sacrifice her life you know."

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"I got arrested. And I found Al. Your brother. It's OK, we got out." Ruby was about to ask a set of questions but she refrained from doing so. "He knew Bela. And she wasn't who she said she was. She worked for the resistance, Ruby. They gave her a secret weapon. We don't know what it is but it can do some serious harm. And she gave it to you. It's trapped under your skin, that last time she saw you, she planted it. She's not dead. At least we don't think she is. And doing this, it's going to make things a whole lot worse. You probably don't believe a word I'm saying but you have to. You have to run, as far away from wherever you are as possible. And when you're there, you need to keep running. We'll find you, I swear we will and we'll sort this out but you have to go."

Ruby was awestruck. Anna. This was her Anna. But it wasn't. Everything coming out of her mouth. It was determined. It was strong. She stared at her own wrist. Bela could still be alive. The truth hit her. She lowered the phone and then raised it again.

"Goodbye Anna."

"What? What are you doing?"

"Well I have some running to do, don't I?" And then, she hung up.


	20. xx

*********

 

**Ruby**

 

*********

 

The outlands had been deserted for nearly fifty two years as far as Ruby knew. Sure there were the odd rebels who found holes through the wall. Like her. And maybe there was some type of civilization out there, something that needs to stay remote and has its own reasons for being built in such a dangerous place.

Al told her the tales when she was a kid. They were bedtime stories, the moral: don't go digging into stuff that you don't know about. That seemed to work as some reverse psychology though. Because things that were none of her business, causing trouble, that had been a summary of her childhood. Not that her brother had done much else to stop her. She had always been climbing up buildings and looking for secret hiding places, all over Manhattan.

She found the tunnel when she was thirteen or fourteen. And she told not a living soul. Her visits were rare, maybe once every two months and she never went out far, maybe because a tiny part of her believed Alastair's tall tales to be true.

This was the farthest out she had ever been. And now she wasn't scared. Not of any of the monsters or any murderers lurking in the gloom. Nobody messes with Ruby Masters and gets away with it.

Running was her top priority here. She could run to the other end of the country, maybe start over in Texas or Florida. Or she could get to the sea. Air travel was so expensive nowadays, it was practically illegal unless you were a multimillionaire. But sea travel. She had never been on a boat, not a proper one. She could go to Europe. To Paris and eat baguettes and croissants on the top, revolving level of the Eiffel tower while wearing a beret. Or England. She could go there and have tea with the King. Or she could learn to surf on one of those automated surfboards in Australia. So many possibilities. And when she was old, when this was all over, she could return, find both her loves, Anna and Bela. Assuming they could survive that long.

She carried a deadly weapon in her body. There was no telling what destruction it would do. Maybe she would never know and to be perfectly honest, she didn't want to. Everything would have to wait, everything would have to come to a halt.

Her name was Ruby Masters. And her mission was to run.

*********

 

**Anna**

 

*********

 

She strolled down that all too familiar street in the center of Manhattan on layer 3. The stores were the same, the alleyway where she regularly caught Ruby smoking, the rare fruit store. It was rush hour and everyone really was rushing, to work, to school. She would have a new home soon. She was due back there now. But she had to make one quick stop first.

She arrived outside the apartment building where she had lived for three months of her life. Would people recognize her with her natural red hair? It would be nice to see a familiar face, even if it were just Angela and Derek who Ruby had constantly complained about.

But she was in for a surprise. It was all boarded up. There was police tape pulled tightly across the doors along with countless no entry signs. There were sheets of wood over the windows, on the bottom floor anyway and a notice, declaring it a crime scene as of a week ago. As she looked up now, she could see, there was not a single light visible through any of the glass. The place was deserted. But she had to find it.

She ducked under the tape, no one there to stop them, no one was guarding it here. She had to push the doors as their automatic setting had been switched off. The floor of the lobby was thick with dust, she coughed and wiped some from the front desk. And the elevator was locked with an iron bolt, just as she had expected, forcing her to take the stairs.

What had happened here? It was all clear. The sign had been put up the night Ruby left, the day before the police came for her. It made sense now, how they had been listening to all that loud music and no one had complained. No one had been _here_ to complain. On the floor she had stayed on, the door to every room was open, revealing ransacked kitchens and smashed windows, blood staining some of the floors. The innocent residents had been dragged away from their homes because of them. Maybe they suspected they had been helping the 'criminal' duo and had brought them in for questioning. The door to Angela and Derek's house had almost been ripped from its hinges and chunks of it lay in splinters on the carpeted ground. It was inviting her to take a look.

She just put one foot through their doorway, just for a quick peek. It seemed they had gone with ease as not so much of a mess had been left. Their windows were intact, all their clothes still hung neatly in the wardrobe, the only signs of the struggle were the bed clothes which had been strewn on the floor where they lay in a crumpled pile, a toy truck of little Aaron's which had been left near her feet, and of course, the destruction to the door.

She turned and her hair flicked a little in the breeze, probably from another window that was no permanently open. There was their own previous apartment and the marks to their own door from where it had been driven open. The place was a wreck, probably more due to her than anyone else. She had put up quite a fight, she recalled. But it seemed more work had been done while she was gone. She went to the bathroom and the mirror had been thrown aside and tossed carelessly away so that it shattered into a thousand pieces. They had found her little hole in the wall and most of the sheets of paper she stored in there were gone. For a moment, there was a pounding in her heart. What if they had taken it? And then she saw it among the ruin. A tiny notebook. Her notebook. She picked it up and held it against her chest. And then she turned and ran. She could not bare to be in this place a second longer.

**____________________**

Anna was welcomed into the shelter with warm arms. Literally. As she arrived, Lilith hugged her, the way a mother might hug her own daughter. Maybe she reminded her of Ruby. Al stood at the side and just grinned at her. The family had been glad to see him back of course and as she watched him reunited with his little siblings, she was sure she saw a tear in his blue eyes. Maybe he wasn't so uncaring, after all.

She could not stay with the Masters. They barely had enough room as it was and now they had their oldest back, it was becoming harder. She could not afford to put any more pressure on them. The Winchesters gave her a mattress to stay on, instead. Sam was shy and quite most of the time with his nose and floppy, dark hair always in a book. Dean reminded her of Al in the flirty and arrogant way though he seemed nicer. He introduced her to his father, a tired looking middle aged man named John. Like his younger son, he did not speak much either but sometimes she heard him sobbing through the night. With good reason too. His wife was dead. She did not know how but it must have happened when the brothers were very little. There was a video in a frame of a smiling, pretty blonde woman with her arm around a younger and more attractive John. She also held a little baby with green eyes and a long haired, toddler Dean, hugged her waist. She would probably have been lovely, had she still been there.

It seemed to have gotten better here. She knew nothing had changed whatsoever. Maybe now she had lower standards. But who cared? She liked it there. There was no sign of Connor, apparently his family had moved somewhere else.

Every day, both families plus Anna, met up, they ate the slop that was served to them. Ruby was in the wind, and Anna was dead set on finding her. She visited Charlie all the time. They were a team now, the two girls and as much as she hated to admit it, Al. And as they ate their dinner, they talked about her, they discussed their favorite memories.

Ruby had been right. The Anna Milton story had completely died down. No one knew her name. No one recognized her face. She still worried about her brother. She was desperate to see him and every day, she was working the courage up to see her family again. All this could wait.

**____________________**

She had been there a month when she woke up in the middle of the night on her mattress. Dean was asleep, that was a rare occasion. Most of the time, he just sat there, staring off into the distance for reasons she was unsure about. But she could hear his heavy and even breathing, the silhouette of him curled up opposite her was just visible.

So she got up, treading carefully over what the did have. And then there was her notebook. She had placed it, neatly on their little table, for when she needed it and now she found herself flicking through all her diaries entries. The mattress sank beneath her and she finally came to the very last page. She finally knew what to say about Ruby.

_The time I first saw Ruby I'd like to say I picked her out in a crowded room and to be quite frank, it was impossible not to notice her with that blue hair. But it wasn't love at first sight. Love at first sight does not exist. If she had been the most beautiful girl in the world, I would have thought I wouldn't mind dating her but it would be based on appearance only, I would have thought she was hot and sexy and let's face it, she is a tiny bit. But I could not have had love at first sight with Ruby, without having heard her witty comments, without having fallen properly in love with the way she laughed in the face of danger but yet how she could still be so sensitive and sweet towards me. This girl, she made me feel like I was worth something, no matter how strongly I went against that. And now I just wish I could have done the same to her._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the end of the story. I know I ended on a cliffhanger and I might write a second one but I'm not sure yet.


End file.
